Prospero in Hell

by L. Jagi Lamplighter

  “Ah-ha!” He tapped the staff against the sole of his shoe.

  The swirling wings that sprang so clearly to mind were larger and more powerful. Then, a gryphon screamed, slashing its lion tail. The mythical beast dived, rapidly closing the distance between itself and my precious flute. My heart leapt into my throat. Gryphons had razor-sharp beaks. Would he snap the flute in two when he caught it? If the flute broke, the terms of the servitude of the Aerie Ones who served my family—the eight winds, including Mab, and their many servants including sylphs, zephyrs, and other spirits of the air—would be at an end, freeing them to ravage the earth with tempests, hurricanes, and tornados.

  The gryphon reached the flute and snatched it gracefully from the air with its eagle talons. Issuing its victory scream, it turned and began winging its way back up toward us. A second scream, lower in pitch, answered from above us.

  The p-son-en burst out of a snowbank, its jagged wings releasing another volley of icy death.

  I drew the war fan of Amatsumaru, the Japanese Smith God. Its moon-colored slats shone like a mirror, showing me a striking young woman with emerald eyes and hair so pale as to appear silver, her face framed by a white fur. In the moment it took me to recognize my own reflection, the spears of jagged ice bounced harmlessly against the far side of the fan. Behind me, I heard Mab’s grunt of pain as one of the ice shards found its mark.

  “Oh yeah! Mess with me?” Mephisto cried joyously, and I heard the tap of his staff against his shoe. “You’ll rue the day you didn’t join my team. I offer a dental plan and everything!”

  The rain of icicles had stopped; I peered from behind my fan in time to get the distinct impression I could see a whirl of wingspan the length of two football fields. Then, a speckled bird that was longer than a house issued its war cry. The p-son-en turned and fled. The roc sped after it, talons splayed.

  “Saved by the magnificent roc again!” Mab murmured respectfully. “I think we owe that bird a herd of buffalo or something.”

  The great bird snatched the smaller one from the air. We began to cheer. The p-son-en dissolved into ice and snow. It seeped through the huge claws. Reforming some feet beyond, it opened its wings toward the roc’s unprotected breast. Mephisto tapped his staff, and the roc vanished, but not before we heard its screech of pain.

  I patted the horse’s sleek white neck. “Pegasus, see that mountaintop over there? Head for that.” To Mephisto, I added, “Have the gryphon meet us there.”

  Pegasus dove toward the peak, Mephisto still dangling from his teeth. The p-son-en pursued, again raining razor-sharp icicles down upon us. Luckily, Pegasus could outrun the speeding icicles, but once or twice, Mab had to knock frozen shards aside with his lead pipe or blow them away from us with his Wind’s breath.

  As soon as we landed, I leapt from Pegasus’s back and ran to my flute, courteously thanking the gryphon. Then, I called to my companions to duck. Raising my flute over my head, I swung it in a circle. Wind rushed into the holes, causing the instrument to whistle. The whistling grew louder and louder, and the air above me began to stir. Gusting eddies blew past my face. As I whirled it around more quickly, the speed of the winds increased. Within moments, I held a full-blown tornado by the twist of its tail.

  It was like standing near a helicopter. The roaring winds sucked at everything. My hairpins ripped free. My silvery locks whipped wildly about my head, temporarily blinding me. Snow from the peak beneath us flew upward, filling the air. Mab’s fedora flew from his head. He dived after it, snatching it just before it was absorbed into the cyclone. Still clutching it, he crashed, shoulder first, into the hard rock below, grunting painfully.

  Flipping my flute forward, I released the twister directly into the path of the p-son-en. The bird of ice and snow opened its wings menacingly, only to have all its little snow daggers sucked up by the tornado. Freed of its restraints, the funnel of wind swept away toward the horizon, carrying our attacker with it.

  “Wow! Did you see that p-son-en in action, Miranda?” my brother cried, leaping to his feet and gazing in admiration after the departing cyclone. “I’ve got to have one!”

  Mab and Mephisto were both wounded, as were Pegasus and the roc. Before leaving the mountain peak, I had my brother summon up the magnificent bird, and lined the four of them up before me. I pulled out of my pocket a small pear-shaped crystal vial and swirled the pearly white liquid within. As I pulled out the stopper, a sweet refreshing fragrance spread through the frigid air. A single whiff brought to mind many joyous occasions.

  “Water of Life, anyone?” I queried, smiling.

  “Me! Oh, me!” Mephisto yelled, throwing his arm up as if he were in school and then wincing with pain as the motion tore his wounded shoulder.

  Walking down the line, I used the dropper built into the top to put a single drop on the tongues of Mephisto, Pegasus, and the roc. Mab refused the drop on his tongue, pointing at where the ice shard had torn his arm.

  “Better not partake, Ma’am. That stuff goes right to my head.”

  I let the pearly drop fall onto his wound and put one on Mephisto’s shoulder for good measure. Water of Life did not heal instantly, but it strengthened the body and will. After a short rest, all four of them were well enough to depart. Mephisto sent away the gryphon and the roc, and he, Mab, and I climbed onto Pegasus again.

  “Hi, girls! I’m home!” Mephisto threw open a pair of bright red doors. “Uncover the will-o-wisps and stoke up the salamander. We have guests!”

  We had reached Mephisto’s place, which turned out to be an impressive mountain mansion located somewhere in the wilds of Canada’s Northern Territories. Outside, the air was worse than frigid. As the doors opened, wonderful, welcoming warm air met our faces.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever . . . whoa!” Mab pushed forward and then halted abruptly. “Er . . . sorry. Didn’t realize you girls were real. Thought Harebrain was just pretending to have a life.” Mab paused and peered. “Podarge! Is that you?”

  “Of course, it’s me! Who else might it be?” cawed an unpleasant voice. “Who are you?”

  “It’s Mab . . . er, I mean Caekias.”

  “Caekias! Is that you? You look a fright!”

  “He doesn’t look so frightening to me,” came a sweet feminine voice. “He looks like a detective.”

  “That we can see Caekias at all is frightening,” purred a third, huskier voice. Her voice became sharper; “Shut the door, by Bacchus! It’s freezing out there!”

  I stepped inside. Three women were gathered in the spacious foyer, from which arches led off in various directions. Near the main archway, a tall, powerfully built woman leaned against the railing of a curving staircase. She was dressed in panther skin with a snake for a belt, and carried a fennel stalk, twined with ivy, topped with a long, slender pinecone.

  Closer to us, perched on a chandelier, was a creature that was half-woman and half-bird. She had wings for arms and powerful, cruel talons for feet. Her back and haunches were covered with feathers of gray and slate blue, but her ugly face and pendulous bosom were bare.

  Below her and to the left, a round pool approximately six feet across had been set into the blue-and-green-tiled floor. A red-haired mermaid floated in the water, leaning against the rim, her pretty chin resting on her fist. Beneath the water, the scales of her multicolored tail glimmered like faceted jewels.

  “Phisty!” The mermaid clapped her hands in delight as my brother strode into the large foyer. The harpy nodded grudgingly from the chandelier. The maenad gave him a jaunty two-fingered salute.

  “You know these women, Mab?” I asked, entering.

  “This is Podarge.” Mab waved a hand at the harpy. “She’s my . . . well, you’d call her my sister-in-law. She’s the mother of Xanthos, and Pyrois, and those guys, the horses who pull the chariot of the sun—the ones your sister Logistilla was so steamed about having to hold.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” As I stepped forward to shake Podarge’s hand, an unpleasant
odor assailed me. I withdrew across the foyer as soon as courtesy allowed.

  “Xanthos and my other son, Balius, pulled Achilles’s chariot, too,” said the harpy with a flap of her great wings, “but did they get any credit for their hard work? No! It’s all swift-footed Achilles this, and swift-footed Achilles that. What? Do they think he was running on his own two feet? Why do you think he was so swift, I ask you?”

  “Er . . . right,” murmured Mab.

  Mephisto sauntered forward. Reaching up, he rubbed the harpy’s head, tousling her hair, apparently unaffected by her stench. “Don’t be such a grumpy-kin.”

  I grabbed the handle of my moon-silver fan, afraid she would rend him with her razor-sharp claws for his effrontery. Instead, she arched her neck, pleased.

  “After all,” he continued, “Homer mentions them, even says how they wept when Partrocles died.”

  Podarge shuddered with outrage. “And that’s supposed to soothe a mother’s wounded heart? Mentioned by Homer? Ooh! I’m swooning. Why didn’t he call his poem ‘Xanthos and Balius,’ I ask you? Now, that would have been an intriguing work. Poets. Pah!” She spat, barely missing the mermaid, who whacked the water with her fish-tail to show her displeasure. “What do poets have to say about harpies, hm? ‘Hatchet-faced’; ‘loathsome’; ‘ill-tempered.’ Not a word about what wonderful mothers we are. Not a word about our feelings or our needs. No, it’s just ‘frightened this nosy king’ or ‘chased off by that pair of winged clowns.’ ”

  “Careful,” Mab growled. “Those winged clowns are my . . . well, you’d call ’em nephews.” To me, he said, “She’s talking about the Boreads: Calais and Zetes. They sailed with the Argonauts. Drove Pod, here, and her sisters away from King Phineus’s table. Good boys, Calais and Zetes. They’re filling in for Boreas, Caurus, and me as the heads of the Northerlies while we’re working for you, Ma’am.”

  “Speaking of winds, how is Zephyrus?” asked the harpy. “Has he asked about me?”

  “Not that I’ve heard, Madam.” Under his breath, Mab muttered, “Never did quite see what Zeph saw in you birds.”

  The harpy had heard him. “Oh, and he’s such a fine catch, himself, the jealous boy-chaser! Besides,” she purred, brushing back her hair and preening, “I can be quite beautiful when I’m in my horse form.” Then she let out a loud squawk and defecated. Her foul-smelling dung dropped to the floor and splattered across the blue and green tiles.

  “Ew! Gross!” Mephisto pinched his nostrils shut. “What did I tell you about using the potty? Outside! Outside with you.” He shooed the harpy out the door into the cold morning. “Agave, clean that up, will you?”

  “Who me?” cried the maenad.

  She struck the butt of her pinecone-topped thyrsos against the floor and glared at Mephisto, outraged. With each moment, she grew more terrible. Her hair spread about her like a mane. Mab and I drew closer together, and my hand found my fan again. The Water of Life that gave my family our immortality brought us more than human strength, but even so, I did not believe I could win a tussle with a maenad.

  “Please?” my brother cooed, bringing his hands together. “Pretty please with cream cheese on top?”

  “Cream cheese?” Agave cried, but her hair settled down again. She snorted impatiently and turned to the mermaid. “Morveren, be a sweetie and go fetch the yeti, would you? Tell him to bring a mop.”

  The red-haired mermaid dived down into the pool and, with a flip of her powerful tail, sped off through an underwater tunnel.

  “That leaves you and me, Agave!” Mephisto sauntered over to where the maenad leaned against the stairs, and patted her fur-clad bottom. “Ready to shag? How about we sneak upstairs and go at it like greased weasels!”

  “Ugh!” Mab winced. “There are ladies present!” He glanced at the towering maenad in her panther skin and muttered under his breath, “One lady, anyway.”

  “Not so fast, Staff Boy,” the maenad replied in a low throaty voice. She tapped him on the nose with the long, slender pinecone atop her thyrsos. The snake wrapped about her waist like a belt raised its head and hissed menacingly. “We maenads are chaste, remember? We’re saving ourselves for the Vine God’s return.”

  My brother leaned over to stare into the serpent’s eyes. “Hello, Soupy!” He stroked it under its pale scaly chin. “Remember me? Yes, of course you do. Soupy’s such a good Snaky.”

  The serpent unwound from the waist of the maenad and circled about my brother’s arm, hissing affectionately.

  The maenad gave an exaggerated sigh. “Betrayed by my own guardian snake.”

  She stepped toward Mephisto who, despite being shorter than her, dipped her over his knee and smooched her.

  “Woo hoo!” Mephisto pulled her upright and punched the air. “Come on, Agie-poo.” He hooked his arm through hers—the snake winding about both of them—and headed off, not up the stairs but through the far left archway. “Let’s check on the others, and see if we can’t scare up some dinner.” Over his shoulder, he called, “Make yourself at home, Miranda! I’ll call you for supper.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Marvelous Mansion of Mephistopheles Prospero

  “Let’s examine everything, Ma’am; leaving no pile of laundry unturned.” Mab stuck his head through one of the archways leaving the foyer. “I want to see what else we can find out about your brother.”

  My hand clutched the slim leather volume, still wrapped in its smooth green paper, that lay deep within the pocket of my white cashmere cloak. “You go ahead. I’m going to find a warm place to sit and read my Christmas present.”

  “It would be a whole lot more efficient for you to come with me, Ma’am, being as Mephisto is your brother and all.” Mab’s voice sounded funny, as if he had a bad cold. When he turned, I saw that he was pinching his nostrils against the awful stink of the harpy dung. “You may recognize at a glance something I won’t be able to make head or tail of.”

  “We have plenty of time,” I countered, inching toward the rightmost arch, where I had glimpsed an armchair.

  “I thought you were in an ungodly hurry to rush back. The Three Shadowed Ones could be offing your siblings as we speak,” Mab countered.

  “I appreciate your concern, but there’s nothing we can do to speed things up,” I replied. “I sent an Aerie One to our offices in Vancouver with a message asking to have someone fly another Lear to Yellowknife. The Aerie One has to fly there, and a pilot has to fly the plane back. This will take hours.”

  “Yellowknife?”

  “As best as I can tell, we’re in the Canadian Northern Territories, somewhere between Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake. Yellowknife should be the nearest airport.”

  “As best as you can tell?” Mab scrunched up his cheek and scratched at his eternal stubble.

  “I’ve never been here before. I had no idea Mephisto had a house in Canada,” I said. “Heck, I didn’t know he had a house at all. Which is probably for the best, because if I had known, I would have just sent him a note telling him about Father’s letter, and we never would have gone looking for him.”

  “Good point. If we had not located the Harebrain, we would never have found your brother, Mr. Theophrastus, or your sister.” Mab nodded. He added dubiously, “This Yellowknife airport. How are we going to get there?”

  “We’ll have to borrow Pegasus, but since we have hours, we should give the beast a chance to rest first,” I concluded happily. “So, I’m off to read. Tootle-loo!”

  “Whoa, Ma’am. Maybe we don’t have to leave right away, but we only have while your brother is otherwise occupied to investigate his house,” Mab countered. “Can’t whatever you’re planning to read wait? You’ll have plenty of time to read on the flight back to Oregon.”

  The trip home seemed a long way off. For five hundred years, I had searched for the Book of the Sibyl. Theoretically, another few hours should not make much of a difference, but right now, with the little leather volume burning a proverbial hole in my pocket, even
these few seconds of delay seemed an eternity.

  This little book that Lord Astreus had copied for me in his own hand held the secrets of the Order of the Sibyl, the only rank of my Lady’s servants I had not yet achieved. Conceivably, this slender tome might hold all the answers I so longed for. It was even possible that, by the time I finished reading it, I would be a Sibyl!

  And then . . . ah, then!

  The rank of Handmaiden, my rank, came with the authority to travel to the Well at the World’s End—a journey of a year and a day—and bring back the Water of Life that allowed my family to be effectively immortal. The rank of Sibyl, however, came with six Gifts. The Gift of Absolving Oaths would allow me to free my favorite brother, Theophrastus, from the foolish vow he had taken to eschew the Water of Life, the vow that would soon bring about his death through illness and old age.

  The Gift of Visions would allow me to request information directly from my Lady, perhaps offering answers to the many questions that plagued my family. The Gift of Opening Locks . . . well, I did not know how powerful it was, but it was at least conceivable that, with my Lady’s help, I could unlock the very gates to hell itself, where my father was being held captive, and force them to yield him up.

  And then there was the Gift that would allow me to create Water of Life, so that I would never again have to take off a year and a day, abandoning all my other duties, in order to bring back only as much Water as I could carry.

  Nor was it just that I wanted new honors and prerogatives. For five centuries, I had hungrily devoured every arcane manual and ancient tome that came my way, eager to discover more of the nature of my Lady and Her Divine Purpose. Long nights I had spent bent over musty pages, seeking the secrets that evaded me. After all this time, all this searching, I yearned to learn the answers to my questions.

  I skirted around the pool. “I’m sure you’ll do fine on your own.”

  “Okay, no skin off my back.” Mab shrugged. “I’m just your head detective. If you’re not interested in why Harebrain can turn into Big, Black, and Bat-Winged, I don’t need to know, either.”