Devil's Lair

by David Wisehart

  “You destroyed the brotherhood—”

  “Fractured the fraternity—”

  “Brought chaos to our order.”

  Marco shook his head and took a step back. “I’ve never seen you before.”

  “Brutus!”

  “Cassius!”

  “Judas!”

  “No!”

  Marco ran from the riverbank. The other knights gave chase. The centaurs, seeing the blood-drenched Templars flee the river, raised their crossbows and let fly a flurry of arrows. Hughes de Payen was hit first, then the other two. Marco thought he might escape, but the arrows came for him. He was struck in the leg, the buttocks, the back. He fell, crippled by a dozen bolts, and the grey air went black.

  Nadja felt a shudder in her heart. No. He can’t be dead. She ran for him, with William and Giovanni close behind her. The centaurs galloped after, reloading their crossbows. Nadja picked up the Lance as William and Giovanni each grabbed one of Marco’s arms and dragged him to the edge of a dark wood, leaving a smear of blood like a brushstroke over the rocky canvas. Glancing back, Nadja saw centaurs hauling the Templars back into the river. Another came for Marco, charging fast.

  The forest was too far. We’ll never make it. She held the Holy Lance in her hand. It thrummed with a power she had never felt before. It thrilled up her arms and radiated throughout her body. Her fear vanished. She knew what she had to do.

  Stopping, turning, Nadja pointed the Lance at the charging beast. “Leave him alone!”

  The centaur rushed at her. Nadja braced for the impact, but the beast stopped short and reared up on two legs, towering above her, his forelegs kicking the air. She jabbed the Lance at him. He turned, trying to circumvent her, but she stepped into his path, keeping herself between the centaur and his prey.

  “Go away!” she screamed.

  The centaur laughed. “You will not survive the woods.”

  He raised his crossbow and released a bolt over her head. She looked back. Marco was being dragged by his arms into the trees. The bolt struck him in the back and through the heart. When Nadja looked forward again, the centaur was riding away.

  She ran for the woods, following Marco’s bloody trail, and found her friends huddled in the dark.

  “Is he dead?” she asked.

  Marco grunted. “Not yet.” An arrowhead poked through his chest where his heart was. He pulled the arrow out the front.

  William muttered, “‘arma Dei.’”

  They rested at the edge of the oppressive forest, which creaked and moaned about them. William drew the arrows from Marco’s flesh. With the blade of the Holy Lance he cauterized the wounds and set them to healing.

  “What is this place?” Marco asked.

  Giovanni said, “The wood of suicides.”

  CHAPTER 28

  The eldritch forest was thick with gnarled and twisted forms. William felt a sense of dread. She’s here.

  “There must be another way,” he said.

  Marco laughed. “They’re just trees, Father.”

  “Souls,” said Giovanni. “Suicides.”

  “These trees were once people?” Nadja asked.

  The poet nodded. “Transformed, like the Heliades who wept for their brother.”

  “These trees weep only for themselves,” said William.

  Marco rose to his feet with great effort. The friar helped him up. The knight leaned against a tree trunk, waived William off, and stared at Nadja.

  “What?” she asked.

  “The Lance, please.”

  She gave it to him. When he regained the relic, his strength seemed to return. Marco used the weapon as a staff and, limping, led the pilgrims into the haunt of the hamadryads. They found no path, but the ground sloped into a valley, giving them a sense of direction. The temperature dropped. The lancelight shrank from the shadows.

  William muttered a psalm: “‘nam et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis non timebo mala quoniam tu mecum es....’”

  A harpy darted overhead, quick as a bat, but with the face of an old hag. Another swooped, and another, shrieking and cawing with talons poised for bloody vengeance. Marco swung the Lance, knocking one harpy from the air before the others fled.

  William heard a low growl. The pilgrims stopped to listen. Footsteps rustled on the forest floor. Something waited beyond the lancelight.

  “Hellhounds,” Giovanni said, needlessly.

  Marco led them to the left, pursued by pawsteps, a hunting pack in the edgy dark beyond discernment. William felt the urge to bolt, to break from his companions, but he remembered Saint Francis at Gubbio and thwarted the impulse.

  He felt a cold wind. A susurrus of dead leaves whispered his name in voices he knew. Father Ignazio? Fat Tom? These were the men he met in Corona Corvina. He knew now where he was: in a holt of suicides who had untimbered the town walls and stepped into the air.

  Marco picked up the pace, and soon they were all running, stumbling, cursing, clawed on all sides by a conspiracy of branches.

  William felt a tug at his sleeve. The muzzle of a hellhound worried the friar’s robe. William tried to slap the beast away, but he twisted and collapsed. Shadows claimed him. When he looked up again the lancelight was gone. He heard panting and slavering. His bare feet were anointed with drool. He scrambled and lurched into a run, unsure of his direction, fending off malevolent brachia until he could go no further. Embrangled in a thicket that tore at his robe, he struggled. When his eyes adjusted he saw three hellhounds waiting a short way off. They did not attack, but blocked his exit.

  Above him he saw a jutting branch. He reached for it, but it was too far. He jumped. The branch reached down to meet his hand. He grabbed it, pulled himself up, and climbed until he found a place to sit. Not bad for an old man.

  “William,” said a faint, familiar voice.

  His heart jolted. Evette.

  “William.”

  Evette’s voice came through the trees. She sounded very near.

  “William.”

  Then he saw it. In the tree that had rescued him, a twig had snapped, leaving a small hole in the trunk. Blood bubbled from the hole, giving the tree a voice: “You came back to me.”

  “I was chased,” he said.

  “But you ran to me.”

  Why? Of course. “I wanted to see you.”

  “You rejected me.”

  “You rejected yourself.”

  She paused. More blood dribbled from the wound in the bark. “I wanted to hurt you.”

  “You did.”

  “Good. Why should I be the only one who suffers?”

  “Everyone suffers,” said William. “Why add to the world’s pain?”

  “You added to mine.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Maybe that helps you. It doesn’t help me. I’m here because of you, William. It’s your fault.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. He traced a black vein in the bark with the tip of his finger. “What would you have me do?”

  “Don’t leave me here alone.”

  He surveyed the forest of racinated souls. “You’re not alone.”

  “Please, William. Stay.”

  And there it was, the choice laid bare. All his life he had wanted to be with her, to hold her in his arms again, to feel her skin against his own. He might have returned to her someday, might have left his brothers to take a wife, might have followed his heart and not his head, but she had robbed him of that hope, had taken it with her to the grave. There was a moment, once, when he heard the news of her suicide, that he thought of joining her. Now here he was, in the arboretum of the damned. He could stay. Of course he could. It seemed easy enough. A fall might do it. Better yet, one of these sharp branches. He could cut his own throat, impale an eye, pierce his heart. What then? When his flesh fell away, would he take up roots beside her? Would they grow together? Would their branches intertwine? Is this really what she wants?

  “I can’t,” he said. “My friends are waiting for me.”
/>   “I waited for you.”

  “I know.”

  “Me. The one you said you loved.”

  “I did love you.”

  “Love me now.”

  “I fell in love with God.”

  “Stay.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? What good is that? Is that why you’re here? To leave an apology in your place?”

  Why am I here? At the edge of the wood, all he could think of was seeing her again. The hounds had chased him here. William got what he wanted, but why? He could not stay with her. And yet, he owed her something. She felt wronged. How had he wronged her? By leaving? Did he owe her his life because she offered love? No. He had chosen God. That was no betrayal. He was here for another sin. I lied to her. Weak, he had dissembled. He told Evette he would come back for her, but knew even then it was a lie. He offered her hope, and she took it for despair. Now he owed her the truth. “I came to say what I could not say before.”

  “What is that?”

  “Goodbye.”

  Her scream sliced through his heart. Her branches fought him all the way down. William endured the scratches without complaint, letting her have that last taste of vengeance. He dropped to the ground and walked away, forsaking the twisted soul he once loved more than God.

  The hellhounds sat on their haunches, watching him, but let him pass unharmed.

  When he stepped back into the lancelight, Nadja said, “I thought we lost you.”

  “A trick of the wood,” the friar said.

  Giovanni said, “When they stopped chasing us, you were gone.”

  “It was me they were after.” William noticed a twig poking through his robe. He plucked it out and tossed it aside.

  Marco clapped him on the shoulder. “At least they didn’t get to you.”

  “They did.”

  The ground rose ahead and the trees grew sparse. The friar set a brisk pace. Each step felt lighter than the last. God had not forsaken him. William walked out of the valley of the shadow of death, and feared no evil.

  Beyond the wood stretched a merciless desert where hot sand denied passage and fire fell like rain. The pilgrims circled left along the edge of the forest until they came to the river of blood, which cut a path to the abyss. The ground was passably cool along the edge of the bloodstream; where blood met sand, a long scab formed. It cracked and crunched beneath their feet as roils of steam doused the fiery rain.

  Not far from the forest, the pilgrims came upon a group of naked men who lay on their backs in the scalding dunes, screaming curses into the boiling air.

  “War!”

  “Crusade!”

  “Burn the Jews!”

  “Kill the Saracens!”

  “Sack their heathen cities!”

  Nadja turned to Giovanni. “Who are they?”

  “Blasphemers.”

  “They sound like preachers.”

  William said, “More evil is done in the name of God than in the name of the Devil.”

  “Is that blasphemy?”

  Giovanni singled out one sinner. “Who are you?”

  “A prophet of God.”

  “What did you prophesy?”

  “Death. Destruction. Eternal damnation.”

  “Reliable themes,” said the poet. “Why are you here?”

  “God is testing me. He once threw me into the belly of a fish, but I was delivered. Now I am in the belly of another beast, the beast that is the world.”

  “Then you are Jonah,” William said, “son of Amitai.”

  “I am.”

  Giovanni said, “Now you lie with the blasphemers. Did you curse God in anger?”

  “God promised to destroy Ninevah.”

  “Ninevah repented,” said William. “You did not.”

  “I did as God commanded. I preached His wrath.”

  “But did you preach His mercy?”

  Jonah grimaced. “The wicked deserve no mercy.”

  “Love is the great commandment,” William said. “You preached hate, not love. Vengeance, not forgiveness. You invoked the name of God to sanctify evil. There is no greater blasphemy.”

  The friar dipped his toes into the scalding desert and kicked hot sand in the sinner’s face.

  Jonah, son of Amitai, screamed in agony.

  The pilgrims passed on.

  Nadja followed her friends along the river. The scabby ground was hot and her leather soles offered little protection. She worried for William, who wore no shoes at all. The river boiled on their left, sending a vapor into the air that quenched the falling sparks. They fell as wet ashes through the mist, recalling to Nadja the scent of her baby’s breath.

  She heard music over the dunes: the sound of a lyre and a voice like an angel. From somewhere unseen, a man sang the same song Giovanni had sung in Padua, though this man’s voice was better that Giovanni’s. It was the sweetest, clearest voice she had ever heard.

  Giovanni cupped his hands at his mouth and cried out, “Orpheus!”

  A naked singer crested a far dune, playing his lyre, leading a dozen naked men who sashayed in a row behind him. Transported by the troubadour’s voice, the other shades seemed oblivious to the blistering sand and the fiery air. The song ended as Orpheus reached the river’s edge.

  “I am Orpheus.”

  Giovanni said, “We saw Eurydice in Limbo.”

  “Then you are as blessed as I am damned.”

  “She sends her love.”

  Orpheus looked down at the sand that blackened his feet. He knuckled a tear and said, “She deserved a better man.”

  “Why do you say that?” Nadja asked.

  “I was weak. Faithless. If I had been faithful to her in life, I would be with her now in death.”

  “What was your sin?”

  He shook his head and would not meet Nadja’s gaze. “Ovid knew, and betrayed my secret.”

  Giovanni said:

  Ille etiam Thracum populis fuit auctor, amorem

  In teneros transferre mares...

  Orpheus nodded. “When Eurydice was gone, I could love no other woman. Yet love is all I know.”

  “So you exhausted yourself on catamites,” Giovanni said, “and taught sodomy to the Thracians.”

  “I betrayed my love. My love betrayed me.”

  “Eurydice loves you still.”

  “From afar,” said Orpheus. “The sand at my feet, the fire in the sky, these pains are nothing to me. I am separated from the one I love. There is no greater torment.”

  Orpheus turned away, leading sodomites over the sand, strumming his lyre in an eternal lament.

  The usurers ambled the sand with heavy bags slung from their necks, their faces downcast, their eyes focused on the contents of their purses. Giovanni recognized the shade of Boccaccino di Chellino. Father. The old man approached slowly, stooped by the enormous weight around his neck: a large bag engorged with gold.

  “Giovanni?” his father said.

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Is that you, boy?”

  “It’s me.”

  The old man bellowed a laugh. Coins jangled in his bag. “I knew you’d come around.” Boccaccino inspected his son. “You look like a mummer.”

  Giovanni glanced down at his colorful clothes. He thought he looked good, if a bit overdressed for the underworld. “It’s the Neapolitan style. This is what the rich men wear.”

  “Only debtors dress like rich men,” his father scoffed. “You look like a man who once had money.”

  Giovanni’s heart sank. “I have no money.”

  His father looked puzzled. “If you have no gold, how did you get here?”

  “I’m still alive, Father.”

  “Then you still have time.”

  “For what?”

  “The bank.”

  “There is no bank. Not anymore.”

  Boccaccino scratched his pate. “Yes. I forgot.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters!” his father thu
ndered. “You didn’t help me, boy. You should have helped me. We could have saved the bank, could have saved it together.”

  “Let me help you now.” The string of the bag cut a deep groove into his father’s neck, forming a bright red welt in the skin. “It looks heavy.”

  Boccaccino glanced down at the coins. His face basked in an aureate glow. “A burden, yes. It was always that.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  Gold coins reflected in his father’s eyes.

  “Let me help you,” Giovanni said, reaching for the bag.

  His father recoiled, his face twisting with rage. “Don’t touch it! It’s mine! I earned it!”

  “It’s a curse, Father.” Giovanni tried to pull the bag off, but the old man fought him for it. The bag jolted in the scuffle. A few coins spilled out.

  “I earned it!”

  Giovanni let go. The old man dropped to all fours to pick up the fallen coins. Panicky, he ran his fingers through the sand. Giovanni watched with apprehension. Was this all that was left of his father?

  The man rose to his feet, holding the recovered coins. Anger seemed to drain from him. “Look at that man,” he said, pointing to a shade with a bigger bag. “I might have had more.”

  “It’s too heavy for you now.”

  Boccaccino snorted. “I was a fool. All those years I wasted.” He shook his head. “If only I had known the secret.”

  “What secret?”

  His father whispered the words like a revelation. “You get to keep it.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “It’s our secret. Don’t tell anyone. Promise me.” The old man put a cold, spectral arm around his son.

  Giovanni pulled free. “I don’t want it,” he repeated.

  “You’ve still got time, boy. Work hard. Make your mark. Come back here and make me proud.”

  “I never cared for money.”

  His father glared at him. Giovanni knew that look, and felt the old daggers.

  “Don’t I know it,” his father said. “Don’t I know it. You had to go and be a poet. Ha! How hard was that? That was nothing! What you do is nothing! Slap two words together. ‘Mama! Papa!’ A baby can do that. Why can’t you be a man? Learn a trade and be a man? Earn some money and be a man?”

  Giovanni lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry, Father.”