To Franchezzo and A. Farnese,
whomever you may be,
with much gratitude!
THE FAMILY PROSPERO
Eldest to youngest
THE DREAD MAGICIAN PROSPERO carries the Staff of Eternity
MIRANDA carries the Staff of Winds
MEPHISTOPHELES carries the Staff of Summoning
THEOPHRASTUS carries the Staff of Devastation
ERASMUS carries the Staff of Decay
CORNELIUS carries the Staff of Persuasion
TITUS carries the Staff of Silence
LOGISTILLA carries the Staff of Transmogrification
GREGOR carries the Staff of Darkness
ULYSSES carries the Staff of Transportation
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
THE FAMILY PROSPERO
ONE: Once More Back into the Swamp
TWO: The Late Lord of Arden
THREE: The Greatest Swordsman of Christendom
FOUR: In the Belly of the Kronosaur
FIVE: Some Are Born with Souls …
SIX: The Hellwinds Cometh
SEVEN: The Black Bog of the Sullen and Slothful
EIGHT: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream …
NINE: In the Bowels of Hell
TEN: Promises of Marriage
ELEVEN: The Battlefield of Wasted Lives
TWELVE: There Once Was a Girl Named Maria
THIRTEEN: Bite the Angel’s Finger!
FOURTEEN: The Duchess of Infernal Milan
FIFTEEN: Leader of the Family Prospero
SIXTEEN: The City of Dis
SEVENTEEN: Sycorax’s Child
EIGHTEEN: The Mountains of Misery
NINETEEN: Prospero’s Purposes
TWENTY: Which Way I Fly Is Hell
TWENTY-ONE: From Hell’s Heart, I Stab at Thee!
TWENTY-TWO: The Staff of Wisdom
TWENTY-THREE: Such Stuff as Nightmares Are Made Of
TWENTY-FOUR: Master of a Full Poor Cell
TWENTY-FIVE: Thy Mother Was a Piece of Virtue
TWENTY-SIX: Alcestis’s Bargain
TWENTY-SEVEN: The Queen of Air and Darkness
TWENTY-EIGHT: The Serpent of the Winds
TWENTY-NINE: Seir of the Shadows
THIRTY: The Battle of Limbo
THIRTY-ONE: Tears for the Living
THIRTY-TWO: Into the Tempest
THIRTY-THREE: Prospero’s Secrets
THIRTY-FOUR: O Brave New World
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TOR BOOKS BY L. JAGI LAMPLIGHTER
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER
ONE
Once More Back into the Swamp
“What we need now is a cheer weasel!” My brother Erasmus pulled his boot out of the thick ooze with a sucking pop. Mud spattered across his dark green breeches, his justacorps, and the hem of Mab’s trench coat. Erasmus winced. “Sorry about that, Company Detective. This not-letting-go-of-each-other business makes things rather cramped.” He lifted Mab’s right hand, which he held in his own. “Still, beats being led astray by demonic illusions, I suppose.”
“What in tarna…” Mab muttered in his Bronx accent. He glanced nervously at the infernal landscape that stretched around us in all directions: the dreary swamps, the cypresses dripping with dead moss, the lurid red sky, the Wall of Flame burning in the far distance. His left palm, slick with sweat, was slippery in my grasp. “What in Creation is a ‘cheer weasel’?”
“It’s something Mephisto says when people are glum: ‘Nothing a good whack with a cheer weasel won’t fix!’” Erasmus tentatively stepped onto a shaggy gray hummock. The lump of dead grass sank beneath his weight. Pulling his foot back, which now dripped with more goo, he made a face. “I have no idea if it’s a modern pop-culture reference or an invention of my brother’s deranged brain. Either way, I think I might benefit from a whack of the old cheer weasel about now. Might increase the appeal of being trapped in Hell, searching for my lost family members with my brother the former pope, an Aerie One trapped in a human body who thinks he’s Humphrey Bogart, and the sister I hate.”
“Not Bogart.” Mab glanced up at his fedora—he would have pulled it low over his eyes, but he did not have a free hand. Under his breath, he muttered, “Well … maybe Philip Marlowe.”
Erasmus, Mab, Gregor, and I moved slowly through the Swamp of Uncleanness—where dwelt the souls of those who had fallen prey to the sin of lust. Walking hand in hand was easy enough on a paved road. When the ground underfoot was spongy and sinking, it became both treacherous and aggravating, particularly for those of us who were in the middle. We could neither wipe sweat from our faces nor pinch our noses to block out the horrendous stench.
It was so hot here that steam rose from beneath our feet. Worse than the stench were the sinners themselves. Yet, we could not lower our eyes and ignore them, as if wearing imaginary blinders. Instead, we had to peer into every nook and cranny, searching for our missing brother.
And our presence here was entirely my fault.
On my other side, my brother Gregor stuck his staff, a length of ebony carved with blood red runes, under his arm, and gave my hand a comforting squeeze. His crimson cardinal’s robes, with their billowing half cape, stood out against the landscape, a bright spot in the literally God-forsaken gloom.
For most of his life, Gregor had been a bulky, almost brutish, bully of a man, consumed by hatred, mainly toward the Protestants. Our youngest brother Ulysses, to save himself from the demon Abaddon, imprisoned Gregor for many years. Yesterday, we discovered this and rescued him. We found him a changed man. The new, more contemplative Gregor was slender. He had dark, shoulder-length wavy hair and a calm, almost saintly, expression. What sparked this change in Brother Gregor, we did not yet know. I had to admit to myself that I was curious about what had happened during his imprisonment to bring about this transformation. It had to be something more significant than losing four stone of weight.
Gregor slipped his arm up so that our elbows were hooked together. This freed his hands, which he cupped around his mouth with its close-trimmed black beard.
“Mephisto!” Gregor shouted for the umpteenth time. Lowering his hands, he spoke, his voice hoarse and breathy due to a magical mishap in his youth. “I do not see him anywhere. Are you certain he is here, Miranda?” Then, looking across the swamp, he called out again, “Mephisto! Mephistopheles Prospero!”
“No sign of him, Ma’am. I’m with Father Gregor, here. Are we sure this is where the Harebrain landed?” Mab muttered. His “this” sounded like “dis.”
“In the vision the angel showed me, his besetting sin was lust.” Sweat ran into my eyes. I blinked rapidly. The heat still was opressive, but the memory of the angel and the sense of peace she brought momentarily lifted my spirits. “That means the Hellwinds would have dropped him here. So, he’s here … somewhere. Unless he’s found his way out on his own.”
We glanced across the tremendous expanse of swamp that stretched out in every direction as far as the eye could see.
“It’s hopeless,” sighed Erasmus.
* * *
AROUND us, fetid quagmires, dotted by bracken-covered islands, stretched beneath a lurid sky crisscrossed with bands of steely gray. Souls damned for excessive lust floundered in the muck, crying out for succor—until they were dragged down by their more licentious compatriots. On the larger islands, groups of the damned engaged in massive orgies, resembling a battle more than any erotic acts. Others clambered onto smaller islands, upon which great corpulent demons disported with them. On one nearby isle, a six-horned demon whipped the damned until they dropped to their knees and performe
d acts of obscene obeisance.
The whole sordid scene, with its noxious gases that left the four of us reeling and retching, was made even worse because we now knew that the liquid in the swamp was not water but the accumulated drippings of the wanton desires of those on earth. Qualities that were merely spiritual upon the material plane had a physical nature here. Just the memory of having had to swim through the stuff left me queasy, and here I was, voluntarily walking into it again.
I would not have done it, not for any price, had there been another way to find my missing siblings and rescue our father. But there was not, and I could not leave my family stranded in Hell forever.
Gritting my teeth, I choked back my gag reflex and forced myself to scour the unseemly landscape, searching each passion-contorted face for the features of my brother Mephisto … the brother who held the crystal ball that could lead us to the others.
Beside me, Gregor bent his head in low, breathy prayer, “Lord Jesus, hear my prayer. Help us in our hour of need.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Erasmus scoffed. He stood ankle deep in reddish mud waiting for the rest of us to jump onto the next hummock. His staff was strapped diagonally across his back. His Urim gauntlet hung on his belt. When we first set out, he had worn it in order to be ready in case of attack. But since he could not use the Staff of Decay while standing so close to the rest of us, he eventually decided there was no point in wearing the hot, unyielding gauntlet. “God does not heed the prayers of those in Hell.”
“Why shouldn’t He heed ours?” I countered. “We are not damned. We’re still alive.”
“Gregor may not be damned,” Erasmus granted, “but sisters who betray their family are another issue.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Surely you don’t expect me to believe you summoned up the Hellwinds by mistake? I will remind you that Abaddon warned us there was a traitor in our family.”
“Careful, Professor Prospero!” Mab jerked his head, trying to push back the brim of his fedora, which was now falling across his eyes. “It does not pay to listen to demons!”
“That’s what you told us,” Erasmus replied mildly, “right before your Miss Miranda, here, scattered our family to the four quarters of Hell. Or perhaps I should say, to the Nine Circles of Hell.”
“It’s not like she did it on purpose,” Mab countered.
“I fear, Spirit Detective, my dear sister has deceived you as to her nature and intent. Either that, or you plotted with her.” Erasmus turned his head and regarded our other brother through his lank dark hair. “Really, Gregor. Out of our whole family, the only other person you managed to save was Miranda? Couldn’t you have given her a push and rescued someone worthwhile?”
The terrible regret that had tormented me ever since I accidentally summoned up the Hellwinds, which caused us to lose six of my siblings—seven if one counted Caliban—gave way to wrath. Anger rushed through me like a tidal wave beating against an unprotected shore.
Surely, there was no one in all the world as horrible as Erasmus! It seemed a cruel irony that Theophrastus, whom I loved so dearly, had been ripped from my grasp and carried away, while Erasmus, of all people, had been saved.
Erasmus clearly felt the same way about me.
“I saved whomever I could,” Gregor replied gravelly. He nodded toward Mab and me, his silky black hair spilling over his crimson-clad shoulders. “Clearly the hand of Providence was upon us. Without Miranda, we would be lost. She is the only one who can see through the illusionary pleasure garden that lies over this Circle of Hell. It befuddles us whenever we are not touching her, leading us astray. Without her, we would have lost our way an hour ago.”
“I like the pleasure garden,” Erasmus grumbled. He released Mab’s hand and gazed around at the alternate landscape. Mab quickly took the opportunity to use his free hand to adjust his hat and to wipe his face with a monogrammed handkerchief.
Erasmus smiled and drew a deep breath, as if inhaling fresh garden air. “It’s pleasant, with cool fountains and dancing girls wearing veils and harem outfits. The air smells like…”—he sniffed again—“cherry petals.”
I sighed, wishing that I, too, could experience that false utopia. I disliked the idea of volunteering to be fooled, but I was bone-weary and soul-tired. A few breaths of something that did not smell noxious—even if it was actually noxious—would have been a welcome relief.
But, it was not to be. I could not see the infernal illusions. I was not sure why, but I suspected that it had something to do with the two wings of emerald light—like impressionistic brushstrokes—that stretched from the shoulders of my enchanted tea gown. Perhaps, if I stripped off my emerald dress and donned a garment not steeped in protective enchantments, I, too, could have fallen prey to the deceits of Hell. But I was not about to pull off my gown in the midst of the prison for the torment of the overly lustful.
Besides, it was not in my nature to deliberately fool myself. I had not served Eurynome, the White Lady of Spiral Wisdom, for five hundred years, just to throw away all the wisdom I had learned for a few moments of relief.
The memories of my years as a Handmaiden to the Unicorn and of the reason for my having been demoted from those honored ranks returned to me. A tear trickled down my cheek, but I could not free my hand to wipe it away.
Erasmus grabbed Mab again, smiling regretfully. “The real picture is far less rosy, of course. What appears to be a fountain is actually oozing sewage. The dancing girl is a giant, bloated spider dripping with poison.” He pointed at another island where a creature such as he described hung upon a gigantic web. “As to the smell…”—he started to sniff the real air and coughed, nearly gagging—“I will not even begin to elaborate.”
“By Titania! Why a pleasure garden?” Mab scratched his eternal five o’clock shadow with the hand that clasped Erasmus’s. “It makes no sense!”
“Wish I knew,” Erasmus responded wistfully.
“Ma’am.” Mab pointed my hand at the horizon. “What’s that?”
In the distance, a single point of light shone above the swamp waters. Unlike the steely gray bands amidst the lurid reds of the sky, it was pure and silvery, like starlight. A spark of hope stirred within me, as if I beheld some fragile and heavenly thing that gave wings to my heart.
“Beware,” Mab growled. “Could be a trick.”
“It is no trick,” Gregor replied. “It is holy.”
“How could there be something holy in Hell?” Erasmus scoffed, peering into the gloom. “It’s a will-o’-the-wisp, sent to lead us to our doom.”
“We’re already in Hell; how much more doomed could we be?” muttered Mab.
“There are worse places than this one.” Erasmus kicked the water. It splashed thickly, clinging to his shoe like gelatin.
“It is a holy light,” Gregor repeated, and he began to walk.
“How do you know?” asked Erasmus, as we waded back into the swamp, all still holding hands.
Gregor gave him a grave, contemplative look. “What worries me is how you could not know.”
* * *
WARILY, we approached the tiny silver star, sometimes walking along narrow islets, sometimes wading through mud, sometimes swimming in the awful goop itself. The silvery light proved to be farther away than it had first looked. After a time, it winked out.
“Told you,” Erasmus murmured, faintly amused. Gregor merely continued walking in the same direction.
The longer we walked, the heavier my heart became, until it seemed that my flagging spirits were physically dragging me deeper into the mire. I hated the putrid smell, the eerie green fires burning above the marshes, the gray light cast by the bands of steely luminescent clouds streaked across the ruddy skies, the acts of crudity taking place around us, all of which seemed to involve violence rather than pleasure. I, who so hated rapists—who had been robbed of all that was dearest to me by that violent crime—was trapped in the country of eternal rape. I felt like a claustrophobe whose
path to salvation lay through a narrow closet the length of the Grand Canyon. I tried to avert my gaze, to look only at faces and not see what the bodies were doing, but it was a futile effort. Each time I failed, it was as if I came face-to-face again with the monster Osae and all that he had taken from me.
My fists clenched, making Mab and Gregor, whose hands I was holding, grunt in surprise. How it galled me to know that my attacker, this same Osae the Red, currently lay with his head resting upon the knee of Lilith, the demon Queen of Air and Darkness. She fed him dainty morsels from her own hand as a reward for his treatment of me—for having successfully robbed the Prospero Family of my Lady’s counsel.
Without my Lady’s help, how were we ever going to find Mephisto in this vast place?
But even that was easier to face than the question that truly worried me: what had happen to the others? Erasmus spoke the truth when he said that there were far worse places in Hell than this swamp. Where was Theo, and what awful torture was he suffering? And what condition would he be in when we found him?
To keep from dwelling on such painful matters, I let my mind roam, leaping from subject to subject. I considered briefly a dozen topics: the fate of my father, what was happening back on earth, how Prospero, Inc., was doing back home; et cetera. Eventually, all my thoughts drifted to the elf lord, Astreus Stormwind.
I pictured Astreus: his joyful triumphant laugh when I accepted the Book of the Sibyl from his hand; the outrage I had felt when he asked me to kill him and then would not explain himself; and the way his irises had burned with a golden fire when he admitted that, before the Fall, he had been an angel, and not just any angel but of the Eighth Choir of Cherubim. How eerie his gaze had been—that wild yet calculating fierceness—when we flew above his palace in Hyperboria, and he offered to drop me from a great height, so that, when my brains were dashed upon the ground, my soul might be sped upon its way to Heaven. Most of all, I recalled his parting words, as I stood before the storm playing my flute.
Because I would have my last memory be of the two things I most loved.
Prospero Regained Page 1