“There should be a lesson for you in there,” Gregor said.
“I wonder where Father put him,” rumbled Titus.
“Let us hope we find Father and can ask him,” Gregor replied gravely. “The thought that there might be a demon lying about someplace unguarded strikes terror into my heart.”
“Perhaps it’s in the Vault,” suggested Theo.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Caliban continue to pat his club and whisper to it surreptitiously.
So, I was right. It had been Vinae’s voice that Theo heard instructing Caliban on how to escape from the lava. No wonder Caliban had struggled to save the club!
It made sense. Only someone with little curiosity and no interest in intellectual pursuits could be trusted in the presence of King Vinae. Oddly, it seemed as if the effect of carrying the Staff of Wisdom—the very same influence that might have led Erasmus, or even Father, to ruin—had inspired the dull-witted Caliban, until he grew to think and consider like any ordinary man. If so, in one elegant move, Father had civilized Caliban and hidden Vinae from Erasmus, trusting the whole matter, instead, to Mephisto.
Clearly, Father had not wanted Erasmus to know where King Vinae was, so I did not reveal the secret. Yet, I resolved to find a chance to get Caliban alone and question the club. Perhaps, I could get it to tell me what secret Seir possessed that made him believe he could stand up to Lilith.
Mab had been scribbling in his notebook as he walked. Now, he looked up. “Let’s see, where were we? Anything else you do, Mr. Titus?” Mab asked. Titus shook his head. “Nope? Next…”
Mephisto raised his hand. “Ooo, ooh, pick me! Pick me! I catch stuff. You could call me the family recruiter. I tame monsters and get them to join our side. If I can tame ’em, they live. If not, it’s off to Theophrastus the Demonslayer!”
As he walked, Theo was staring grimly at the gray rocks beneath his feet. “I grow apples.”
Whack! Mephisto whipped the weasel off his shoulder, smacked it across Theo’s face, and flipped it back again with a single motion of his wrist. The weasel issued its happy, toylike squeak.
“Ah! Mephisto, for Heaven’s sake!” Theo laughed, rubbing his nose as if it still tingled. “What a startling sensation!”
Turning to Mab, he chuckled. “Before I became a farmer, I slew demons, monsters that Mephisto could not tame, and really nasty sorcerers. I also used to help intimidate spirits into submitting to Prospero, Inc.’s contracts. A lot of things were afraid of me for some reason.”
“I wonder why…” Mab muttered beneath his breath.
Gregor held up a hand in front of his face, as if to block any incoming weasels. “Before my imprisonment, I fought witches, ghouls, zombies, vampires, and other foul creatures who could be driven back by holy means. I was also the official Prospero, Inc., oath binder. I officiated over the oaths sworn by our clients—a job that belongs to Titus now.”
“Mr. Cornelius?” asked Mab.
Cornelius took a moment to answer. In the silence, his cane tapped regularly from side to side, feeling for the trail. “I run the Orbis Suleimani, which is charged with the task of upholding King Solomon’s legacy and protecting mankind from magic. I also arrange for policy in various countries to favor us, when necessary.” He jiggled his cane. “Recently, however, I have been spending more and more of my time growing identities for Father’s ‘great project.’”
“Growing identities?” Mab looked up from where he had been making notes. “What’s that mean?”
“You know about Logistilla’s part of the project?” Cornelius asked.
“The cavern of naked Italians? Yeah.”
Erasmus snorted with amusement at that, and Logistilla sniffed in disapproval. Mephisto eyed Logistilla and pointed meaningfully at the weasel, nodding his head knowingly. She gave him a wide, fake grin. Apparently, that was enough to hold off the dreaded weasel whack.
“My job.” Cornelius started to speak and then paused as the path dipped down into a shallow dell and then straightened again. When he had successfully negotiated the dip, he continued, “is to produce IDs for those bodies. Only, with computers and private detectives, providing a watertight identity is so complicated that Erasmus finally came up with the idea of starting each persona off as a baby. This way, we produce the correct paperwork at the correct age, so as to create a legitimate paper trail. When the imaginary person is an adult, the Aerie One who enters the body will never have any trouble producing valid ID.
“This sounds reasonable in theory,” Cornelius continued. “In practice, it has turned out to be a nightmare. Each month, I must go down to a hospital and ensorcel a nurse into signing release papers for a nonexistent baby. Then, each of the nonexistent babies must have birth certificates, doctors’ records, Social Security numbers, school records, et cetera. Many of which require that someone be ensorcelled with the Staff of Persuasion, which I must do in person.” He held up his black wrapped staff.
“I could not do this without Erasmus’s family. They do a great deal of the work. The doctors among them sign much of the paper work, and two are clerks in large public schools, which is a tremendous help. Nowadays, with the home schooling fad, it’s become a bit easier—fewer people to enchant, but still, the whole project takes a great deal of effort and cuts into my regular work.”
“That’s why they’re all Italians! Because they’re all meant to look like part of Erasmus’s extended family!” I exclaimed. My own identification was badly out of date. I wondered if Cornelius would help me obtain a new ID.
“Exactly,” replied Cornelius.
“Congratulations, Erasmus.” Mephisto raised a nonexistent glass. “Don’t you owe us, like, a hundred cigars? I’d like mine to be chocolate.”
Erasmus chuckled. “Mephisto, if we make it back alive, I will personally buy you one hundred chocolate cigars.”
“And my buddies Theo and Calvin too!” Mephisto put an arm around Theophrastus and Caliban.
“I don’t want one.” Theo hunched his shoulders, shrugging off Mephisto’s arm. “That molester of women can keep his cigars.”
“And all your buddies, Mephisto, all one thousand of them,” Erasmus promised kindly, but something sinister leapt in his dark eyes as they rested on Theo.
We had finished our descent and were climbing again. The pass lay just above us. The path ascended steeply upward. We began climbing. Within only a few steps, our thighs were burning.
We climbed for an hour and twenty minutes without speaking, pausing to rest only when we finally reached the pass.
As we rested, sipping wine, Mab reviewed his notes. “I never heard from you, Professor Erasmus.”
“Me?” Erasmus leaned back. He was licking honey from the inside of a Ziploc bag Mab had lent him when the Maenad was among us. “I used to be the family sorcerer, seeking new arcane knowledge, locating wayward spirits for Prospero, Inc., to intimidate, and finding the talismans Father sends Ulysses to collect. I was also the family enchanter, hence ‘Erasmus the Enchanter,’ as I was called in yesteryear. I made magical talismans when we had need of them.
“I’ve hardly had time for that over the last few decades; however,” he continued, “as I am Father’s replacement for Theo and Gregor … so I’ve been fighting witches and slaying demons, for which I must admit I am sadly unsuited. Very good to have you back, by the way!” He bowed toward Gregor and Theo.
“You? I had no idea!” Theo blurted, red-faced.
“Surely, you didn’t think Father was just going to let matters slide while you putzed around on that farm of yours? Oh, how important! Apples! Someone had to do your dirty work … Whoa! Not me! I wasn’t complaining!” Erasmus cried as Mephisto whacked him with the cheer weasel. His voice rose into a high chuckle from behind the rainbow creature.
“I guess I thought it would be…” Theo paused, frowning.
“The Orbis Suleimani? Exactly right!” Still chuckling, Erasmus gestured toward himself. He pulled a piece of bright ora
nge fur from his mouth. “And they gave the job to me!”
Gregor bowed in return. “Thank you, Erasmus. I believe Ulysses owes you some time. Feel free to call on him for assistance.”
Ulysses opened his mouth to object, but then thought better of it and clamped it shut again.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Which Way I Fly Is Hell
We set off again, making our way over the large boulders that littered the pass. Here and there, a dead soul sat dejectedly, kicking his feet, or hunched against the bitter wind, brooding. A few huddled in crude rock huts.
We jumped from rock to rock, some of which were unsteady and flipped up under our weight, throwing us backward. In this fashion, I skinned my knee, Erasmus injured his ankle, and Ulysses banged his head rather badly.
After the ramparts came a very steep ridge. A path had been worn into the side of the ridge, but it was quite narrow and covered with loose sand that slid beneath one’s feet. Beyond the path, the cliff fell away in a sheer drop. We hugged the wall, stepping with great care. Cornelius, who was used to being very careful with his feet, did better than the rest of us. But several of my siblings, particularly the ones who were not wearing their own shoes, slipped, nearly plummeting to their death. After the third misstep, Mephisto called up the hamadryad Kaa and made everyone hold on to him or wrap him around our waist. The snake’s eyes rolled back immediately, and he slipped into a comatose state, but this did not impinge upon his usefulness as a rope.
We would have been lost without the cheer weasel. Several times, Logistilla burst into tears. Once, Ulysses began bawling, throwing his arms around Gregor and apologizing over and over again. Gregor patted his head and assured him that all was forgiven, but Ulysses continued to cling until Mephisto whacked him across the side of the head with the furry rainbow muffler. Another time, I noticed silent tears seeping out from under Cornelius’s bandana. I nudged Mephisto and glanced Cornelius’s way, and he, too, received a whack with the weasel. The tears stopped, but there were still two damp spots on the bandana just below his eyes.
I inched my way along the cliffside, impatient to be beyond these mountains and on to Father. To distract myself from the wretchedness of our situation, I contemplated the information that Mab had gleaned from my siblings. The entire exchange had been eye-opening. Not only Ulysses, but all of my siblings had been laboring away at tasks Father had set them. Yet, every time I criticized them to Father, he had said nothing!
Why had he not told me they were about his work?
A terrible feeling of loneliness and misery settled upon me, as if there were a rent in my soul—assuming I had a soul to rend. All these years, I had labored for Father, doing his bidding, carrying out his will, even when his instructions required that I address no one for fifteen years, or remain in a house while the city burned around it. And my reward for this exemplary service, I believed, had been that I was Father’s confidant, the one with whom he shared his secrets, the one he relied on to carry out his most important work.
But that was a lie.
Whatever else I might learn from this point forth about my mother, my soul, whether or not I was under a spell, etc.—even if Father should turn out to be innocent of all other charges, myself free from spells, and his great love, Lady Portia, was my mother after all, the companionship I believed Father and I shared, where I served him, and he trusted me, would remain a lie. Nothing Erasmus could do—mock, sneer, or even strangle me—could hurt as much as this.
Smack! Soft fur that smelled of raspberry and licorice tickled my face, sending jolts of tingly cheer though my limbs. Despite the pain in my heart, I could not help laughing.
We had reached the highest point of the pass and were back on firmer ground. A knife-edged ridge ran between our current position and the last mountain we would need to tackle before we could descend. Unfortunately, a stiff wind buffeted the ridge, making the otherwise simple crossing quite dangerous. The sight was daunting. Nonetheless I could not seem to stop giggling.
“What a funny creature that weasel is.” Logistilla observed me as if I were a subject in a scientific experiment. “Where did you get it, Mephisto?”
“At Santa’s house,” Mephisto replied, adding when Mab raised his eyebrow, “Not this time. One of the other times, when I went to talk to Astreus.”
“Then, you knew?” I cried.
“Knew what?” Mephisto asked as he stepped out onto the ridge walking with his arms stretched wide like a tightrope walker.
I followed him, and the bitter wind hit me, ripping tears from my eyes. Suddenly, it was all too much. Tears poured down my cheeks that had nothing to do with the weather.
Here on the ridge, Mephisto dared not strike me with the weasel, which was beginning to look rather bedraggled. Its fur was now limp, and its big ears were sagging. Mephisto examined it, pouting. He kissed it gently. Then, he tapped his staff, sending it away.
“You knew that … t-that he’d been tithed!” I cried.
“Tithed who?” Mab inched along behind me. “What are you talking about, Ma’am?”
“Astreus!”
“Astreus Stormwind? The Lord of the Winds?” Erasmus barked a laugh. He was behind Mab, balancing carefully with his arms outstretched. “Don’t be an idiot, Miranda. The elves don’t tithe members of the High Council.”
“They did so!” cried Mephisto, his voice filled with anguish.
“They tithed Lord Astreus?” Mab demanded. “Who did? When?”
I had forgotten that Mab did not know. He should have learned of this in a gentler manner, not shouted over the wind in the midst of Hell.
“Mab,” I spoke loudly over the wind. I wiped my face with my satiny sleeve, which did nothing but spread the salty liquid around. “Pass me your earplugs. I’ll give them to Mephisto. Mephisto, put them in your ears.”
This took some careful maneuvering, but when it was done, Mephisto could not hear us.
I explained, “Mephisto swore an oath to Queen Maeve to bring him any part from any animal she chose. She asked for the head of Eurynome.”
There was a collective gasp all the way back along the ridge, as each of my siblings grasped the significance of what I had just revealed. I paused briefly to let them digest the news and then continued. “In order to save him, Astreus brought Mephisto water from the Lethe, so that he would forget his oath. This protected him from Lilith’s power. Should he remember, the oath becomes enforceable, and Mephisto becomes her slave.”
“Which is why our brother is so scatterbrained!” Cornelius exclaimed from somewhere behind me. A glance back showed that he was crawling. Titus carried his cane. “And why he resisted all my attempts to teach him the Ancient Art of Memory. Every time his memory improved, he must have recalled the truth and sabotaged my efforts to help him!”
“Exactly,” Mab replied.
“Lilith’s arrival in the Swamp of Uncleanness now makes a great deal more sense,” Erasmus opined.
“To punish Astreus for keeping Mephisto from her, Lilith tithed him,” I continued.
“But … how could she! The High Council would never have allowed it,” Mab cried. “They didn’t know anything about Lord Astreus having been tithed at Christmas dinner!”
“They don’t know,” I choked, tears flowing freely. “Maeve threw a big party and announced that Hell had forgiven the tithe that Sevenyear. Then, she paid the tithe secretly … with Astreus.”
“No! That’s terrible!” Mab cried. “We’ve got to save him!”
I sank down until I knelt atop the ridge, stricken. Mephisto must have glimpsed me sinking down out of the corner of his eye, because he pulled out the earplugs and leaned over to comfort me. He had no trouble with the narrowness of the ridge, and could balance perfectly despite bending over.
“There, there,” he said kindly, patting my shoulder. “Don’t cry. There, there.”
“We can’t save Astreus,” I bawled. “He’s dead!”
“No! That can’t
be true!” insisted Mab.
Mephisto’s face went very pale, and he grabbed my arm in a grip so tight it was painful. “What makes you say that?”
“Only hope kept him from falling prey to the darkness, hope that I would become a Sibyl and free him from his oath. When he learned about Osae…” I could not go on.
Burying my face in my hands, I wept.
* * *
SOMEHOW, we made it across the narrow razor’s edge to where the ridge widened and we could walk two or three abreast. Our main problem was Mephisto, who had begun to move more and more slowly. His eyes became hollow, his expression blank. And a cold terror gripped us, for we had all seen this before. This was Mephisto in Slump, the dark morose phase of his erratic highs and lows; a phase that sometimes lasted for months.
We managed to shoulder him along over the more dangerous portion of the ridge, wrapping the limp snake around him to make sure we did not lose him over the side. Then the freezing rain returned. Icy water drizzled down our faces, finding its way inside our clothing. My hair lay slicked against my scalp and neck. I felt like a wet cat.
When we reached the safer ground, Mephisto mewed softly and collapsed. Once on the cold wet rock, he curled up into a ball, arms wrapped around his head. Nothing we did or said budged him.
We stood there, sopping wet, looking down at him where he lay, next to a boulder. Loose stones were scattered over the rock underfoot, which was striated with pale and dark gray, broken here and there by veins of quartz. The ridge was wide enough for four men to stand abreast. At the edge of the ridge behind us, the cliff sloped away sharply for some thirty feet before plunging, straight and sheer, down to the valley far below.
The rain let up, but we were still miserably cold. A gray mist hemmed us in on all sides, its dampness clinging to the backs of our necks. The wind gusted, granting us short glimpses of other peaks rising like stone ghosts. When it blew, it whistled loudly, an empty hollow sound.
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