Prospero in Hell

by L. Jagi Lamplighter

  “Just that. You arrived in Hell, and they jumped you?” asked Erasmus.

  “Isn’t that enough? Well, I guess it would have helped if I hadn’t stopped to nick that—”

  “You stole something from a Lord of Hell?” croaked Theo.

  “I admit now it was a mistake,” Ulysses said, fanning his cards.

  “Geez, didn’t you learn anything from that experience?” asked Mephisto, of all people.

  “Sure,” said Ulysses. “ I learned not to steal from Lords of Hell.”

  “When you hear ‘elves’ think ‘Lords of Hell,’ ” Mab said glumly.

  “What about you, Mephisto?” asked Erasmus. “What’s your stance on ‘family water use’?”

  Mephsito shrugged and went on strumming the lute.

  “Don’t you have an opinion?”

  Mephisto shook his head. “Nope, doesn’t matter to me. I came to grips with this immortality thing long ago. We can’t save everyone. That’s just the way it is. It took Miranda a year and a day to get the Water of Life. Even if she had turned around and gone back immediately, with no rest after that grueling trip, she couldn’t have gotten enough water to save everybody on earth. So, I learned to stop mourning those who could not be saved. Besides, if we all lived on Earth forever, who would go to Heaven?”

  “What about the current issue? Don’t you want a say in who in the family gets the Water from this day forth?” pushed Erasmus.

  “Whatever happens, happens.” Mephisto put down the lute and leaned his cheek on his right hand. He smiled at Erasmus and gestured lightly with his other hand. “Look at it from my point of view, Brother. I’m a madman with half a mind. Most of the time I can’t remember where I left my wallet, or where I slept last night. What kind of a life would I have if I worried about the future? Besides, it’s a moot point. The decision is Miranda’s.”

  “Not entirely,” said Cornelius. “Miranda may decide to keep doling the Water out equally. This does not keep the rest of us from agreeing to redistribute it among ourselves.”

  Titus had left his sons and come to join us. Now, he lowered himself into the black leather recliner next to Gregor. “I am willing to give up my share of Water of Life,” he said, his voice low, “but only if it is given to my sons. Give them my share and Logistilla’s as well. Let them have their day. We’ve lived long enough.”

  “I beg your pardon!” snapped Logistilla. “I most certainly do not agree!”

  “Woman, you disgust me!” growled Titus. “Even among brutish beasts, females are willing to give their life for their young.”

  “Children! What do men know of children?” Logistilla scowled.

  “A great deal more than you do, you unnatural witch,” said Erasmus, rising to one elbow. His eyes glittered dangerously.

  Logistilla stared stony-faced at her cards.

  “We have more regard for our children in our little pinkies, Titus,” Erasmus continued, “than our dear sister has in her whole body.”

  Logistilla’s face contorted with anger. She glared at Erasmus. “You know nothing! Have you carried an unborn babe, housing it in your very body, for the better part of a year? Have you borne it in pain and fed it with your own bosom? No? Men! You men think of children as some kind of trophy, a prize for which you should be rewarded. A man’s life is his own, to do with as he pleases. A woman, her life is her children. You men! You know nothing of children!”

  “And you know more? You, who have hardly even spoken to your sons since they arrived?” spat Erasmus. “I’ve talked to them more since they arrived here today than you have.”

  Logistilla rose and lunged at Erasmus. The chain on her leg rang loudly as it clanged against her chair. It kept her from crossing to where Erasmus lay, but she made it as far as Theo. In a low harsh whisper that would not carry to where the two boys played, she said, “I have borne over fifty children in my time, birthed them and raised them with my own blood, sweat, and tears. All of them, save these two, are now cradled six feet beneath the heartless earth. You have no idea what that does to a mother!

  “The first time one of my sons died, I thought I, too, would die. Surely, no one had ever suffered so, I thought, for such pain could not be borne. Sea level rose that year, so great was the volume of my tears. I feared the sheer magnitude of my pain might cause time itself to end.

  “But then another one died, and another, and another: some in infancy, some as soldiers upon the battlefield, some growing old and rotten and forgetful before they fell into the grave. And worst of all, some bitterly resentful of the youth and beauty of their own mother, the woman who bore them. And all the while, cool Miranda held back the Life that could have saved them.” She spared a glance for me. Her black eyes glittered with hate.

  “All my early children were sons,” Logistilla continued. “When I finally had a daughter, I determined things would be different. My Marisa was the most precious thing that ever breathed air, a sweet-natured creature, inquisitive and joyful. Even as she grew, she did not lose her innocent charm. She was my heart, the very purpose of my life.

  “I resolved to move Heaven and Earth to keep her alive. I had such plans for us. She was to be my lifelong companion, my bosom friend. We would spend years together studying magic and raising beasts. She loved all animals, my little Marisa.” Logistilla’s eyes shone with unshed tears. A single teardrop began running down her high-boned cheek. “I started squirreling away Water of Life. Taking my share only every second or third year, so that I would have enough for her, so that we could be young together, forever. . . .”

  Silent tears now streamed down Logistilla’s cheeks. She wiped at them absentmindedly with the back of her hand.

  “What happened?” Erasmus asked, leaning forward. He was drawn into her story in spite of himself.

  Logistilla’s voice sounded as if it came from a great distance. “When she was still a young woman, as mortals count years, a mother herself, with two tiny infants of her own, she was raped and killed by street thugs one night in Edinburgh. Just like that—the most precious thing in my life—snuffed out as one might snuff a candle.”

  Logistilla paused, unable to continue. Gregor stood and crossed to where she stood and put his arms around his twin. She put her head against his chest and wept. The rest of us remained silent. Eventually, Logistilla, still leaning against her twin, began to speak again, her voice low and heavy with sorrow.

  “When we buried her, I stayed behind after the mourners had left. Upon her grave, I swore I would never put my hope in my children again. That I would never love them, as I had loved her and her older brothers. A piece of my soul lies buried with each of those early ones. What soul I have left is cold and tough, like a stringy old chicken. It lacks the breadth of courage necessary to love children properly. You men. You know nothing of children.”

  She pushed Gregor away, and without another word, returned to her seat. Dabbing at her tears with a white handkerchief and sniffing, she picked up her cards and continued to play her hand.

  Erasmus reached for the wine bottle on the table, then slapped it angrily, sending the bottle flying across the room toward the fireplace. Mephisto, who had resumed playing his lute, reached up, caught it out of the air, took a swig, and placed it on the floor beside him.

  Rising to his feet, Erasmus said, “I think I’ve drunk quite enough for one day. Today we’ve learned that I make a maudlin drunk. Isn’t that dandy.” Without another word, he left the room, leaving the rest of us to our private thoughts.

  Lunch was a subdued affair. We gathered in the dining hall, some of us dressing for dinner, some not. People came and went without much interaction. Erasmus did not put in an appearance, to no one’s surprise. I sat in my old seat, poking at my fish and keeping my own council. My simmering resentment of Erasmus’s new weakness of character, this dereliction of family duty in our time of need, was the only thing keeping me from the gaping jaws of dark depression. Yet, it sickened me that I had come to such a state where th
e only thing keeping me going was hatred, especially as I feared my antipathy might be fueled by envy.

  When we first arrived, Erasmus had spoken to Cornelius about the “great project.” He must know what Father was attempting to achieve with the Aerie Ones. And Erasmus was the one who had Father’s arcane journals and for whom the phoenix fire message had been intended. All these years, I had been under the impression I was the one with whom Father shared his most intimate secrets. Why had he told my brothers these great secrets, but not me?

  I was deep in the midst of a mental diatribe against Erasmus and his insensitive wickedness, when Cornelius’s voice broke the spell of my reverie.

  “I fear I can no longer restrain my curiosity. Miranda, where is the Ark?”

  “A-ark? What ark?” I asked, taken aback by this strange non-sequitur. “The Ark of the Covenant? You have it, don’t you?”

  “There is little point in playing dumb, Sister. We know your people stole it. What I wish to know is why. I believe you, at least, owe me an explanation.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

  “You disappoint me, Sister,” my blind brother sighed. “I had at least expected you to be honest when cornered.”

  From the other side of the table came a low groan of exasperation. Mab slammed his wine cup down with a bang and pushed up the rim of his hat.

  “Begging your pardon, Mr. Cornelius,” his voice was a low growl, “but all this dumping on Miss Miranda stops right now! When the demons framed your people for having blown up our warehouse, Miss Miranda wasn’t fooled, not even for an instant. The evidence pointed right at you, but she laughed at it and insisted, ‘My brother Cornelius would never do that!’

  “So, I ask you—whatever stupid, badly placed clues you found aside—who do you think stole your Ark of the Covenant? The Handmaiden of the Unicorn, guardian of the family fortune? Or the family klepto, who was being chased by demons?”

  “Hey, I resemble that remark!” objected Mephisto. He looked rapidly back and forth down the table. “Oh! You mean Ulysses! Phew! Off the hook!”

  “What warehouse?” asked Cornelius.

  Mab told him briefly about the accidents that had befallen the company in this last month, since Baelor of the Baleful Eye glimpsed some of our company secrets in my thoughts back in Chicago, and of finding the burnt body of the man Mephisto called Mr. Mustache in the damaged warehouse.

  “Edwardo.” Cornelius lowered his head, observing a moment of silence for the dead man. “He was one of Erasmus’s people. I feared the worst when he did not return. I thought perhaps Miranda had killed him,” Cornelius continued sadly. “He called me from the Caribbean to say she was being shadowed by three demons. He insisted on trying to warn her. That was the last I heard of him.”

  Unexpectedly, tears came to my eyes.

  “I did kill him,” I said softly. “Or, rather, I might as well have. He tried to chase me through rock-strewn waters in the dark. His boat crashed. I-I thought he was a servant of the demons.”

  There was an awkward silence as we each dealt with our private sorrows. Yet another pebble in my jar of self-recriminations. Had it not been for the séance and the spirit that disrupted it, I might have stopped to talk before running, and an innocent man would not have been killed. Mab was right. Magic was too dangerous for mortals. And that was what now we were: mortals.

  Mab broke the silence. “The demons must have gotten ahold of his body. Because, as I explained, it showed up in the damaged warehouse. But Miss Miranda was not fooled, not for a minute. Even before I told her forensics had discovered the body was a plant, she was defending you. She knew what you would do and what you wouldn’t do. Apparently, she knows her family better than you do, Mr. Cornelius. You and Mr. Erasmus keep accusing Miss Miranda of all sorts of nonsense she’d never participate in.”

  “Enough, Spiritling. It is unwise to criticize your betters,” said Cornelius.

  Mab laughed out loud. “You? A blind man who manipulates his own people and interferes with their economy? My better? Ha!”

  Cornelius’s calm expression never faltered. He lifted his staff. The amber stone twinkled. Mab’s eyes narrowed. Grabbing the salt shaker, he stood and spun in a circle. Salt sprayed everywhere.

  “Kneel,” said Cornelius.

  Mab, surrounded by a scattering of salt, gritted his teeth, resisting. His body jerked several times, but whether it was the salt or pure willpower, he managed to remain standing. As there was no point in glaring at the blind man, Mab turned his angry glare toward me. The time had come to put an end to this.

  “Enough, Cornelius!” I commanded.

  “Are you giving me orders now, Sister?”

  “If you trifle with my people, you shall live to regret it!”

  “Is that so? What can you do?”

  “You want Father’s work finished? You need my help. Cross me, and no one gets the Water. I’ll throw it in the sea. Worse, I’ll give it to Mab, and only those he favors will live.”

  “You would risk Father’s great work for this spiritling?” Cornelius asked.

  “This spiritling, as you call him, is Father’s great work!” I blurted. “He and his kind will remain upon the Earth far, far after you and I have perished and turned to dust. If they are going to be the keepers of mankind’s destiny, we had better start appealing to their better nature, don’t you think?”

  “Do they have a better nature?” asked Cornelius.

  “Ask Mab,” I replied.

  “Do you?” asked Cornelius.

  I am not the judge of voices Cornelius claims to be, but I thought his question sounded sincere.

  “ ’Course I do,” replied Mab. “All God’s creatures have better natures. Some just don’t listen to ’em . . . or do you think there are things between Heaven and Earth that were made by some power other than God?”

  “Good point,” Cornelius said quietly. “There is much Father knew about, which the rest of us can only guess at. He received his information from some supernatural source. We only received our instructions from him. If Father believes spirits should walk as men, who am I to disagree?”

  “Great,” said Mab. “So? Who’s for going down to the Music Room and pummeling the truth out of Ulysses?”

  “Spill the beans, perp, or it won’t go so easy for you.” Mab smacked his trusty lead pipe across his palm, as he glared down at where my brother Ulysses sat playing cards with Logistilla.

  “Sorry, chap, can’t,” was Ulysses’s glib reply.

  “I’ll ‘can’t’ you, you good-for-nothing . . .” Mab began. I touched his arm lightly and he reluctantly stepped back, still slapping the lead pipe against his hand.

  I said, “Can you tell us about the Ark of the Covenant?”

  “Found out about that, did you?” he asked cheerfully.

  “Then it was you!” Cornelius accused.

  “Indeed! Indeed!”

  “Why?” asked Cornelius and Mab together.

  “Sorry, can’t oblige,” Ulysses responded again.

  Cornelius lifted his staff. “Can’t or won’t?”

  Ulysses lowered his cards, facedown, and stared speculatively at the winking amber on Cornelius’s staff.

  “Look, chaps, I’d love to tell you everything, but I can’t. Literally, can’t. Not won’t. You can try your staff though. Maybe that will get around my geas.”

  “We shall see,” said Cornelius. “Now, you want to answer Mab’s questions, right?”

  The amber stone twinkled. Ulysses’s mouth opened obediently.

  “It’s like . . .” He began to choke. His face turned white, then red, then purple blue. He grabbed at his throat, coughing and hacking. Writhing like a man under torture, he fell out of his chair and began to fret and froth upon the ground. His blue-gray eyes sought mine imploringly.

  “Enough, Cornelius. He can’t obey you!” I cried.

  “Stop,” commanded Cornelius.

  With a whining hack, Ulysses bega
n drawing in breath again. He lay panting on the Music Room floor, his hands massaging his throat. In a hoarse croak, he whispered, “Would love to oblige you, but . . . can’t.”

  “Perhaps I can help,” said Titus, stepping up behind Cornelius and me. “Miranda, send all the Aerie Ones away. The spirit ones, I mean.” Turning to Mab, he said, “Detective. Write down your questions.”

  I nodded and sent the airy servants from the room. Mab brought out his notebook and stubby pencil and quickly wrote five questions.

  Why did you steal the Ark?

  Why did you steal the Ring of Solomon?

  Why did you arrange Gregor’s supposed death?

  Did you steal the Water of Life from Miranda’s chapel?

  Why did you tell Theo to get Cornelius to enforce his oath?

  Titus leaned over and took the notebook and pencil from Mab and shoved them at Ulysses. Then, he lifted up his hand. A thick, solid, length of cedar wood with a “Y” at the top rose up from where it had been resting beside the fireplace and flew across the music room into his waiting grasp.

  “Write!” he ordered Ulysses.

  Titus struck his staff against the table and then held it aloft, as if it were a tuning fork. Only no natural tuning fork resonates silence. The rushing of the water, the fluting of the wind, the noise of clothes rustling and lungs breathing and the soft taps of cards in play; all fell suddenly and unnaturally quiet. In the silence, the mustiness grew stronger, and I could smell the metal filings from the work Caliban had been doing.

  Deprived of his dominant sense, Cornelius threw up his hands. His lips moved rapidly, but no voice issued forth. Frantic now, he skidded backward, bumping into chairs and sending instruments flying as he went. Eventually, he must have reached a place where the effect of the Staff of Silence tapered off, for he slowed his flight and stood, his chest heaving, his skin parchment white. Watching his awkward odyssey, it occurred to me that he probably had not known Titus was about to use his staff. To Cornelius, it must have seemed as if the world suddenly ended, without warning.

  Ulysses spared only a brief glance for Cornelius’s plight and then started to write. He wrote hesitantly at first, as if he expected the demon geas to interfere again. When nothing impeded him, he began to write more rapidly, scrawling his answers as quickly as he could move his hand. He wrote: