“Let me carry him.” Caliban bent over Mephisto; he touched his forehead and checked his pulse. “I have helped him through such fits before.”
“No good.” Erasmus shook his head. “Or rather, it’s okay now, but what if the footing becomes more precarious? It’s one thing to slink along a ridge or jump from rock to rock with someone clinging to your back. It’s quite another thing to do so while carrying someone in your arms.”
“Well, at least it’s a start,” snapped Theo, “and quite decent of him to offer. I haven’t seen you suggest a better idea!”
Ulysses tapped his staff on a large flat rock. “I say, we could break into two groups. I could hike ahead with one group, touch my staff to some place up there. Then, I could come back here in the blink of an eye, gather you all, and take you instantly to the spot up ahead.”
“That’s a wonderful idea!” Logistilla clapped her hands. “Do go ahead, Ulysses. Take Theo, Miranda, and the rest. Titus and I will take care of Mephisto.” She sat down on the boulder beside Mephisto.
“I’ll stay here and help.” Erasmus sat down beside Logistilla. The boulder sloped off on one side. He braced himself with his legs.
“I think not.” Theo took a menacing step toward Erasmus. His shoulders rose into a wolfish hunch. “You’ll come with me.”
“Oh?” Erasmus got up slowly until he and Theo stood eye to eye. “Why is that?”
They stood too close together. Theo glowered at him; Erasmus’s face remained calm. Both their eyes held that gleam men got when they saw a brawl in the offing and could not wait to charge out and meet it.
“Because neither of our sisters should have to make the extra trek, and, frankly, I don’t trust you near Miranda,” Theo said.
“Is your precious sister too fragile to make the journey, then?” Erasmus sneered. “Funny, I would think the daughter of the Queen of Demons would be heartier than the rest of us? Or are you afraid I’m going to mug her for her Water of Life?”
“Now, boys!” Logistilla laughed with false gaiety. She chafed her arms, sending water spraying from her wet garments. “Let’s not fight, hmm?”
My brothers ignored her. They stood facing each other on the barren rocky ridge, teeth bared like mad dogs. The wind whistled past them. Theo’s spiked black leather jacket made him look like a bristling timber wolf crouching before the attack, while Erasmus grinned like a sleek panther, the tails of his dark green jacket whipping noisily behind him.
“Now, brothers, let’s not…” Titus’s voice trailed off. He looked to our family leader, who lay curled up in a ball. Then, he turned to me.
“Should I stop them, Miranda?” he rumbled. “I could grab one of them, and Caliban the other.”
I opened my mouth, but my throat was too dry to speak. I nodded. Beside me, Mab slowly drew out his lead pipe and laid it across his palm.
“Butt out, Titus.” Erasmus did not glance toward us. “This is between Theo and me.”
Nonetheless, Titus moved around until he stood behind Theo. Caliban, however, remained beside the curled-up Mephisto, oblivious to the brewing conflict.
Cornelius stretched out his staff, lightly tapping those who stood nearest to him. He wished to intervene, but there was nothing he could do. He could not see the conflict, and he could not use his warded staff to force his brothers to behave.
“Brother?” he called hopefully. “Erasmus? Theophrastus? I beg you. Do nothing foolish.”
“What kind of a man attacks a woman?” Theo growled, ignoring Cornelius. “Your own sister, for Christ’s sake!”
“It would be nice if family connections made a person immune from treachery, but we have Uncle Antonio’s example to assure us that this is not so.” Erasmus’s voice dripped with spite like poison drips from a snake’s fang. “Frankly, I’m glad I did it. Otherwise, we would not have known that our sister was a little demon bitch, who might revert to her mother’s evil ways at any moment.”
“You’re crazy!” Theo shouted. His voice was shockingly loud in the hush of the damp mist.
The rest of us took a step back, even Titus. Cornelius flinched and threw up his hands as if to block a blow.
Erasmus, however, just sneered. “Am I? Look what she just did! She deliberately upset Mephisto and made him go catatonic, so as to slow us down. I wonder if she wants us to reach Father at all?”
I gave an involuntary cry of outrage. Though Theo did not turn his head, he heard me. A noise halfway between a steaming locomotive and an angry bear erupted from his throat. It rose in pitch like the whistle of a tea kettle. Cornelius covered both his ears.
Theo swung a fist at Erasmus. Titus caught Theo in a viselike hug, trapping both arms.
“This is for the lava tube.” Erasmus punched him full in the face. Without pausing, he hit him again. “And this is for banging my head into the wall!”
Theo’s head snapped back against Titus’s plaid chest, once, then again. Blood poured down his face from his nose. His lip had split.
Shaking his arms free of the chagrined Titus, Theo murmured, “I’ll get you later.”
Titus was a head and a half taller than Theo and nearly twice as broad, yet his large face crumpled with fear.
“I didn’t mean for him to hit you!” he cried. “I thought Caliban was going to stop him!”
Theo lunged forward. Erasmus backpedaled. A glance behind him showed that the ridge’s edge was perilously close. With a sickly grin, Erasmus grabbed his staff from the boulder beside Logistilla. In the lull between gusts, we could all hear the familiar hum.
I gasped, unable to think of any way I could help Theo. My stomach clenched so tightly my abdomen felt as if it had turned to steel.
Erasmus flourished the Staff of Decay before him like a whirling gray sword. Snarling, Theo drew the metallic fore piece of his staff from off his back and parried. He knocked aside Erasmus’s first thrust. Whatever the Staff of Devastation was made of, the metal did not dent or tarnish.
“Two can play at that game, Brother,” Theo’s teeth widened into a fierce grin, “and my staff is bigger.”
“An empty boast, Old Man,” Erasmus said, “as you would never use your staff on a family member. But I, on the other hand … I made you young; I can make you old again.”
Theo reached up over his back for the lower portion of his staff.
“Titus, grab Theo again!” I barked out, my voice hoarse from tension.
Titus grabbed his arms at the shoulders. Theo’s face fell. He had the look of a dog whose master had just betrayed him. All this had been his way of defending my honor against Erasmus.
“Father is waiting!” I gestured wildly toward the path ahead. “When we have rescued him, you can fight with Erasmus to your heart’s content. I will even sew you a favor, if you like.”
“Good enough,” Theo said, his face suddenly sober. Titus let him go, and he started to resheath his staff.
Erasmus lunged forward, the hum of his staff audible to us all. With a bellow, Gregor knocked his shoulder into Erasmus. Gregor’s red robes billowed about him like standards upon a battlefield. The blow threw Erasmus several feet. He stumbled, sliding on the loose rocks. Skidding right to the edge of the ridge, he windmilled on the brink, desperate to regain his balance.
Aghast, Gregor ran toward him, followed closely by Ulysses and Mab. Then, before any of us could reach him, Erasmus fell backward.
Hearing the commotion, Cornelius cried out, “Brothers? Sisters? What is happening?”
Erasmus rolled head over heels four times down the steep slope before sliding an additional twenty feet. He caught hold of a small ledge and clung to it. Half a body’s length beyond, the cliff fell sharply away, and there was only mist.
I ran to the edge and threw him the snake. Erasmus glanced from the limp cobra tail to me and laughed, a cold unhappy sound.
“If you think I am going to trust my life to you, you have another think coming, Sweet Sister! I’d rather trust Theo!”
“Oh,
let me do it!” Logistilla snatched Kaa from me and dangled the mottled brown hamadryad down the slope toward Erasmus. Titus stepped up behind her, put his arms around her waist, and grabbed the snake as well with his big hands.
“Actually, this is my bailiwick.” Ulysses stuck his staff through his belt. He flinched as he laid his hand on the cold skin of the serpent, perhaps remembering his recent stint in the snake pit. “Logistilla, Titus, see to it you hold on tight.”
Ulysses grabbed the snake with both hands and slid down the cliff. He let the slick reptile slide through his hands at high speed. My heart leapt into my mouth. He was about to slide right past Erasmus and plummet down the mountain. How could he possibly stop in time?
As Ulysses sped along, he reached down. Erasmus lunged for him. They grasped hands. My stomach clenched, waiting to see what snazzy maneuver Ulysses used to slow them down.
Only Ulysses did nothing.
They kept sliding. Ulysses pulled a startled Erasmus off the ledge and down with him. There was no way the hamadryad could stop their fall now, not without great harm to Kaa anyway. Ulysses was doomed, and he was dragging Erasmus with him.
The snake’s tail came to an end, and my brothers plunged into midair, falling. My stomach dropped with them. Below, a long, long way down, mist swirled over a valley of rock and sharp boulders. I peered closer. Was it my eyes, or were the two of them glowing with a white light?
There was a brilliant swirl, and they vanished. A moment later, a second flash appeared atop the flat rock Ulysses had marked with his staff. Then, Erasmus and Ulysses stood among us.
Mab drew down the rim of his fedora, hiding his face. “Shoulda seen that coming.”
“Me, too,” I whispered weakly.
Titus gave a snort of amusement. “Come now. It was obvious.”
Limbs shaky with relief, I rushed toward them. We all crowded around. Logistilla ran and hugged them both, the unconscious snake flapping behind her.
Erasmus hugged Ulysses as well, which took my younger brother by surprise.
“Thank you,” Erasmus gasped. He was panting hard. The blood that had fled his face had not yet returned. His unfocused eyes were wild and unsteady, as if he were still seeing the rocky valley beneath him. “Though weren’t you cutting it a bit close? What if your staff had not activated in time?”
“Nonsense.” Ulysses brushed some chips of rock from his lapel. “I pull stunts like that all the time.”
“My apologies, Brother.” Gregor bowed from the waist. “I did not mean to strike you so hard, but it is unwise to use our staffs upon each other.” Straightening, he lectured pedantically, “Remember what Malagigi told us. We must attempt to remain calm.”
Erasmus had remained calm the whole time he fought Theo. He had remained calm while he slid backward and tumbled down the hill. He had remained calm while he hung from the tiny ledge. Upon hearing Gregor’s admonishing words, however, the cords of his anger finally escaped his grip, flying off into the wind.
“Calm!” He raged. “Why? How much worse can it get? We are in Hell! Wherever we go is Hell! Every way we look is Hell!” He spread his arms wide indicating the ghostly mountains. A gust of wind lifted his dark hair and the lower portion of his dark green justacorps, around his hips and legs, so that he appeared to be soaring. “‘Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell!’”
His voice rang throughout the hills, cutting through the damp mist and echoing back to us again and again: Myself am Hell! Hell! Hell!
With his lank hair blowing in his eyes and his handsome, pale features, Erasmus looked very much like Milton’s wretched hero. Several of my siblings drew back.
I strove to keep my voice even. “If we work together, we can get out of here.”
“Oh? Is that so? And for how long? A week, a year, a century, till the Water runs out?” Erasmus bellowed, the muscles of his face straining. I had never seen him so angry. “Don’t you get it? We’re all coming back here. That’s the price of carrying our staffs. That’s the price Father agreed to for saving humanity! All his children go to Hell!”
“That’s not true!” gasped Logistilla.
“No, it’s not. Don’t listen to him,” Theo commanded firmly.
“Yes it is,” Erasmus shouted back. “Father told me this when I complained about not sharing the Water with the rest of mankind. He explained that magic was harmful to men.”
“Told ya,” Mab muttered to no one in particular.
Erasmus strove to control the volume of his voice, his effort visible upon his features. “Father’s only giving it to us because he needs someone to carry the staffs. But he knows the price. Those who dwell too close to demons are damned. He put his own soul on the line to save mankind, and he signed us right up to serve beside him. When we die, we all come here—except maybe Miranda, who will come here anyway, due to her own infernal nature. That’s probably why Father didn’t give her a staff with a demon in it. Figured she’d be joining us in the family roasting pit anyway!”
For a brief instant, I felt sad that my staff was the only one without a demon, that I alone was excluded from this bond the rest of my siblings shared. It was a nonsensical thought, but the heart is a nonsensical organ.
No wonder Erasmus had stooped to drunkenness when he learned that the family supply of Water would run out! He thought all was lost. He believed that nothing waited for him in return for all his years of service but Hell. The angel had showed me that Erasmus’s sin was despair. If what we had just glimpsed was the world he lived in, I was astonished that he could get out of bed in the morning, much less continue the brave fight against our infernal foes.
“Father couldn’t have carried them all himself,” Theo objected. “He would have been overwhelmed years ago. Someone had to help him.”
“You!” Erasmus turned on Theo, screaming, “You coward! You chickened out. Too good for the rest of us, are you? You broke your promise when we needed you! Is your soul so important that all mankind should perish? Father didn’t think so!”
Theo drew back, wiping away some of the blood that still flowed from his nose.
Gregor’s voice sounded even more hoarse than usual. “We’re not damned yet. So long as we walk the earth, there may be a way out.”
“I thought so,” Erasmus spat back, “until the hero ran out on us. I looked up to you, Theo! I trusted you! Mephisto’s crazy. That made you the eldest … and you ran! Like a coward! What now? Is it all up to me? Then we’re all certainly doomed!”
“You’re right! I was an ass.” Theo stepped forward until he stood nose to nose with Erasmus again. “I’ve come back. What about you?”
“What about me?” Erasmus asked, but for the first time, he sounded uncertain.
“What of this Brotherhood of Hope you and Mab told Eliaures about?” Theo continued, a hand pressed against his nose. “If what you told the Frenchman is true, then we are never really doomed. There is always a way out.”
“Perhaps…” Erasmus’s voice wavered.
“Of course there are ways!” Mephisto declared, his voice chipper and bright. “Angels help us!”
“Mephisto,” Erasmus spun in surprise. “Y-you came around!”
Mephisto stood up and stretched, yawning. “You started acting like such a doinker, Erasmus, that I had to. I should spank your lily white tushie!”
“I’ve always thought mine was more of an off-peach,” Erasmus replied dryly, his temper again under control.
“So, you would say your tushie is peachy?” Mephisto asked.
“Enough,” Gregor interrupted, “there are ladies present!”
Logistilla laid her hand on Gregor’s arm. “Oh, do let them prattle on, Brother Dear. It’s impossible to be thoroughly miserable when people are talking about tushies.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
From Hell’s Heart, I Stab at Thee!
We crested the last peak. The mist had lifted. Overhead hung smoggy clouds illuminated by the same steely gray glow w
e had come upon elsewhere; only, beyond the Mountains of Misery, it was far brighter, moving across the sky like a silvery aurora borealis. Looking down, we could see a barren rocky slope covered with patches of dark fog and dirty snow. The snowy spots grew more and more numerous until they merged, forming a glacier. In the distance, rising from this icy expanse, stood the Tower of Thorns.
I screamed and clutched my eyes, which burned as if they had suddenly become filled with hot pepper. Several others screamed as well. Trembling, I wiped my eyes. Pulling my hands away, I found blood on my fingers, as I had in Astreus’s dream. The thorns were so painful that merely the act of looking at them had caused harm. It was a good half an hour before I could see clearly again. The memory of my brief visit to that tower in Astreus’s dream, when he accidentally swept me into his memory of having been tortured there, returned to me—with its terrible wrongness and unspeakable alien desires. A cold clammy terror gripped me.
* * *
WE rapidly descended the rocky slopes, stepping at last onto flat ground. What a pleasure to walk without having to check one’s footing every step. I gave a great sigh of relief and rejoiced. Finally, we would be able to move more quickly.
According to the ball, we had spent over twenty-two hours in the Mountains of Misery and now had approximately twelve hours until midnight. By Mephisto’s estimate, we were about three hours from where Father was being held, but that was assuming we could make good time crossing the field of ice.
A low moaning wind swept across the barren rock, pushing dark patches of fog in its wake. Its breezes carried an icy bite. Luckily our enchanted garments dried quickly, though I felt sorry for Theo, Ulysses, and Caliban, who wore ordinary cloth. They were shivering. Ulysses’s lips had turned blue.
Overhead, hordes of horned goblins thundered by. Sometimes, they carried with them damned souls who dangled helplessly from their claws. Once, a great winged demon with the head of a fanged beast began circling the valley. Mab and Mephisto identified him as Sitri, a Prince of the Seventh Circle. Titus tapped his new staff, producing a dark fogbank of our own, and we headed out under the cover of darkness.
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