Prospero Regained

by L. Jagi Lamplighter

  “Thus, my sorcery restored, I have spent my days ruling over those damned souls who dwell here and working my magic against my traitor of a brother. I have whispered to you day and night, inflaming your hatred, reminding you how Miranda had robbed you, had stolen what was yours, had lied and abused and defamed you. Anything you might believe.”

  “My sister…” Erasmus swallowed as if his mouth were too dry to continue. “Did … did she do any of those things?”

  Uncle Antonio raised his shoulders in another elaborate Italian shrug. “How would I know? Most likely, as she is her father’s daughter, and he was a traitorous cur.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?” Erasmus looked as if he had been punched in the solar plexus.

  “Come, Nephew!” Uncle Antonio chided. “You should be grateful. I saved your life.”

  “How so?”

  “Without the hatred I breed in your heart to give your life focus, how would you resist the terrible despair that threatens daily to consume you?”

  Erasmus was now as pale as the souls of the dead in the procession. His eyes glanced about wildly, as if hoping that the rest of us had not heard this. Perhaps, he feared we would mock him, but I did not mock him. Instead, I remembered the afternoon on Father’s island when all that had kept me from desolation had been my hatred of him. If he lived his life like that all the time, I felt very sorry for him indeed.

  Our eyes met, and I saw him sway, as if one of the mainstays that held him up had been cut. It was not mockery he dreaded, but pity.

  Uncle Antonio turned to the others, glancing from face to face. “Where is the blind one? I wish to pay my respects to King Paimon.”

  “I am here, but he cannot hear you.” Cornelius tapped his way forward. He looked somewhat incongruous in his tailored suit and with a bright red and white bandana wrapped around his eyes. “He is bound and warded. Neither you nor I shall benefit by his company today.”

  “Ah, a pity.” Uncle Antonio stared at the black-wrapped cane like a man coming upon the lover who had spurned him years before, choosing another in his stead.

  “When … when did this start?” Erasmus croaked, his voice nearly too dry to hear. “This ‘help’ you have been giving me?”

  “After Maria died,” Uncle Antonio replied. “Before that you were not accessible to the Darker Powers.” He leaned his head back and laughed. “Oh, Sweet Maria. What good she has done our cause, and how she has suffered for it!”

  “What do you mean?” Erasmus cried. “Surely, she is not down…” His voice trailed off.

  “Down here? No. She is on earth. She lives in Poland, where she is a sixty-three-year-old widow, mother of four.”

  “Excuse me?” Erasmus asked, shocked.

  Uncle Antonio leaned toward him, his dead eyes filled with malice. “Maria loved you so much. Such pity did she feel for your sorrow over her death that she had herself reborn and came back to be with you.”

  “People can live more than one life?” Gregor interrupted skeptically.

  “Some do,” Uncle Antonio replied with a shrug. Turning to Erasmus, he continued, “This was in the early eighteenth century. You met, but you spurned her because she reminded you of your lost love, and you could not bear the pain of it. She spent the remaining days of that life in a convent.”

  “What?” Erasmus pressed the back of his hand to his mouth. He seemed to be swaying. “Oh! If I had only…”

  “Oh, there’s more,” Uncle Antonio continued. “Undaunted, she tried again. The second time, you married her—remember Helena?—but you treated her coldly because you felt she did not measure up to your real wife, her previous self. The third time, you used her cruelly and would not wed her. Her name was Natalia then. Ah, I see you remember her, too. After that, Maria gave up. She asked to be granted a life that had nothing to do with you.”

  “No!” My brother’s legs wobbled and then gave out. He collapsed to the dirty snow. Hiding his face in his hands, he wept, a harsh and heart-raking sound.

  Much as I hated him, my heart ached for him. Learning that he had spurned the very woman he had loved so all-consumingly was very possibly the worst moment of his long, immortal life.

  Uncle Antonio leaned over my weeping brother. He seemed taller, as if Erasmus’s defeat gave him strength. “That was my greatest victory,” he chortled, “hardening your heart toward her. Had you allowed yourself to love again, you would have been lost to me!”

  Erasmus pounded on the snow. Sharp shards of ice cut his hands. Red blood stained the ever-present white.

  Mephisto stepped between Erasmus and my uncle. “That’s enough, you bully! You leave my little brother alone!”

  “Ah, Mephisto. Lost your marbles, have you? A shame. You had such promise in your youth! And look at you now, pale and pathetic. An insult to the demon after whom you were named!”

  Mephisto held up a finger, objecting. “Um, actually, I think he was named after me.”

  Ignoring Mephisto, Uncle Antonio sneered at Erasmus. “You could have been great, Erasmus, had you not allowed despair to rule you. You could still be great, if you listen only to me.” He leaned around Mephisto. “All other hope has been lost. Why not throw in with me? Join me, as my right-hand man. All I ask in return is one little thing, that you surrender your whole soul to hatred.”

  Erasmus, his face in his hands, rocked back and forth, wailing. Cornelius moved forward and sought to comfort him, but Erasmus’s rocking shoulder kept escaping his hand.

  Mephisto gazed at Erasmus. His face darkened. Putting his hand beneath his enchanted surcoat, he shoved Uncle Antonio through the enchanted cloth, sending him sprawling. Servants from the procession rushed forward and helped my uncle to his feet. As Uncle Antonio rose, Mephisto seemed to grow taller. His hair stood on end, and his eyes shone with a sapphire light.

  In a great voice, he cried: “Leave my little brother alone!”

  Uncle Antonio stepped back, alarmed. “What witchery is this?”

  Gregor stepped forward and laid a hand on Mephisto’s arm. “Calm yourself, brother.”

  “Worry not!” Uncle Antonio told Gregor. “I fear not this lunatic. What weaklings Prospero bred! Even from here, from the depths of Hell, my magic has proven the stronger! He always was a fool, my brother. He shall die a traitor’s death, and I shall be the victor!”

  “Victor over what?” I gestured at our horrible surroundings. “This?”

  “You visited my Infernal Milan. Have you ever seen a finer kingdom?” My uncle’s eyes glittered with pride and something else, as if he was rejoicing in having won away from us a kingdom he thought was ours. “Or a handsomer people. Oh, I grant you that your Theophrastus has done it a poor turn, but I am assured it will soon be restored as it should be. And, tonight, I finally realize my long-sought dream! Lilith has promised that mine shall be the hand that kills Prospero!”

  He could not see it! The city we had seen with the blood and fungus and horror was invisible to him. In his deluded eyes, Infernal Milan was as beautiful as real Milan, with healthy and prosperous citizens.

  My heart ached. My uncle was a murderer and a practitioner of the dark arts. He had set Erasmus and me against each other, nearly causing the downfall of our family and of the entire human race. And yet, in the end, he was still family. A bone-freezing cold, worse than the biting wind of the glaciers of hell, froze my limbs. I hated the demons for what they had done to him.

  Stepping forward, I put my hand on his shoulder. My hand sank into him, but it had the desired effect.

  Uncle Antonio stumbled backward as he beheld his procession, crying wildly, “What horror is this?”

  “These? These are your subjects.” I spoke forcefully. “You kingdom looked just as dilapidated, even before Theo destroyed it! These followers are what you have gained in return for betraying your kin. Was it worth it, Uncle Antonio? Was this worth betraying your family? Was it worth Ferdinand’s life?”

  Uncle Antonio stared around in revulsion, gaspin
g in horror as his hand came in contact with his damaged face. His words barely escaped his horror-strangled throat. “She tricked me! Lilith has tricked me. No! It cannot be!”

  His eyes then focused upon me. “It must be you who is tricking me. You sly daughter of a witch! You shall never be a Sibyl, you stupid girl. I have seen to that! No woman who is consumed with hatred for her own brother will ever feel the grand compassion required of Sibyls! Thanks to Queen Lilith and her Unicorn Hunters, Eurynome shall never have another Sibyl—not you, not anyone!—and the elves shall pay their tithe to Hell forever!”

  He slapped me across the face. It did no damage, of course. His hand passed through me, but the sensation was unpleasant. My wings flared more brightly. Behind me, I heard the soft hum of Theo warming up his staff. But Mephisto acted first.

  Bellowing, he swelled up. His skin turned dark. His clothes ripped. Dozens of sharp curling horns sprouted from his head and wings sprang from his back. Shaking off Gregor’s hand, he pushed Gregor and me behind him. Then, he spread his enormous bat wings, shielding all of us.

  “Prince Mephistopheles!” My uncle’s damaged face trembled with awe. “But you cannot be!”

  “Finally. Someone has recognized me!” My brother the demon took a menacing step forward. He raised a jet hand tipped with claws of glowing ruby.

  Uncle Antonio threw his arms before his face, crying, “Lilith! Aid me!”

  Leaping back into his sedan chair, he gestured frantically for his bearers to lift him.

  “Run!” he cried. “Quickly, my people, run!”

  The very notion of this large ponderous procession fleeing was a farce. They were surrounded on all sides by uneven ice floes. With a single beat of his great bat wings, Mephistopheles could have descended upon Uncle Antonio and his entire entourage, if he had wished to. He did not. Instead, as the procession turned and darted away, their disturbing music even more discordant as they rushed to put distance between us and them, my brother the demon swiveled and fixed his glowing sapphire eyes upon us.

  “Come, Brethren, we must flee! Our uncle has called the Queen of Air and Darkness.”

  The rest of us, except for Erasmus and Theo, ran toward the mammoth, but Theo raised the Staff of Devastation and pointed it steadily at Mephistopheles’s heart. “Tell me why I shouldn’t send you to Kingdom Come as well, Demon?”

  Rushing back, I jumped in front of Mephistopheles, spreading my arms. “Theo! It’s Mephisto!”

  Theo scowled. “Miranda. It’s a demon.”

  “But that demon is our brother!”

  “Then, Abaddon was right. There is a traitor in our family,” Theo said.

  “Yes!” I screamed, pointing at the fleeing crowd. “It’s Uncle Antonio!”

  Mephistopheles crossed his great black arms. “Shoot if you wish, Good Brother, and I will go to the Kingdom of which you speak, in which case, I will not be of much use to anyone down here, will I?”

  “A demon? To Heaven?” Gregor came back to stand beside the fallen Erasmus, whose blood was still seeping from his lacerated hands.

  Mephistopheles swiveled his horned head and fixed his sapphire eyes on Gregor. “You think because the Hellwinds set me in the Swamp of Uncleanness, that my end will be that unpleasant place? My soul is weighted with lust, it is true, but my sins are not so heavy as to draw me Below. Purgatory, maybe, but no lower. I am Heaven’s servant through and through.” My brother smiled, showing sharp white fangs. “You may consider me a double agent.”

  “Impossible!” Theo insisted. “Don’t listen to him. He’s trying some kind of trick.”

  “Shall I tell you how it came about?” Mephistopheles asked. “After I used the Seeing Sphere of Horus the Wise”—he hefted the crystal ball—“to achieve a position in Hell, I found myself upon a downward spiral. For it was not enough to gain a position in Hell, one must be consistently sinning and showing one’s badge of crimes and ills in order to maintain one’s rank. Very quickly, I found myself within traps from which I could not extricate myself. My clever plan had proved foolish and empty. I was lost.

  “And yet, despite the crimes I was committing, my allegiance was still to Heaven. I wanted to do good, to help mankind, and, most of all, to protect my family. The next time the angels harrowed Hell, I threw myself down upon my face before them and asked for forgiveness.

  “They raised me up and took me to another of their order, a five-winged Virtue, whom they said was responsible for my soul. She sat enthroned upon a scallop shell, with crowns of cloud and sea spray hovering above her brow. In her lap, the way a mundane king might hold a scepter, she held the earth. Gazing upon it, I could see the motion of the clouds and the tides.

  “It burned me to be near her, and the light of her halo was fearsome to behold, for it was too bright for my eyes. Yet, I stood my ground, waiting to hear what fate she held in store for me.

  “In a voice like unto a living flute, she greeted me as one of Solomon’s Heirs. Those who dwelled Above, she explained, had great trouble approaching those who dwelt in Hell. Either the damned were unable to see them, or the angels were too bright for their sinful eyes to look upon. However, the angels, ever vigilant, have not turned aside from their duty to guard and lead mankind.

  “In order to aid those whom they could not reach themselves, the angels employed emissaries, individuals who have not yet left their sins behind, who can be seen and heard by those below. The Brotherhood of Hope is one such effort.

  “The angel gave me a choice: I could depart, leaving my infernal princedom behind and return to the world of the daystar. Or, I could remain a Prince of Hell and serve the angels, addressing those who could not hear them directly upon their behalf. The choice was mine.

  “I struggled with this choice. On the one hand, I wished to serve the angels and undo some of the damage I had done. On the other hand, my duty to my family weighed keenly upon me. When I was Below, I was unable to protect them, to watch over them—and some of them dearly needed watching over!” Mephistopheles’s great sapphire eyes rested upon myself and Erasmus. “So, I sought a boon. I asked that if I agreed to become their servant, and spend some of my time below, doing their bidding, that they would undertake to aid me in my effort to protect my family.

  “The angel agreed. When my family was in danger, she promised, angels would warn Theophrastus, who—of all my siblings—could hear their celestial voices the most clearly.”

  “M-me?” Theo’s arms holding the staff sagged. His jaw literally hung open. “You mean the Voice that tells me when family members are in danger? All these years, I’ve been listening to the voice of an angel sent by Mephisto? Mephisto!!”

  Theo stood a moment longer, stunned with wonder and confusion. Then, he fiddled with the control collar of his staff, separated it back into two pieces, and stuck it back over his shoulder.

  “So that’s how you knew when to come rescue Miss Miranda!” Mab exclaimed. He had come up behind me. “I remember Mephisto said something about it having been angels. But then Mephisto says a lot of things.”

  “Mephisto?” Theo murmured for a third time, flabbergasted.

  Caliban came crunching across the snow. He walked up and laid a big meaty hand kindly upon the demon’s shoulder. “Time to come back to earth, Master.”

  Putting his hands behind his back, Caliban took a deep breath and sang:

  The master, the swabber, the boatswain and I,

  The gunner and his mate

  Lov’d Mall, Meg and Marian and Margery,

  But none of us car’d for Kate;

  For she has a tongue with a tang,

  Would cry to a sailor, Go hang!

  Mephistopheles cocked his head to listen to the singing. As he listened, a playful smile shanghaied his demon face. He grew smaller and pinker until he was his normal self again, puzzled and blinking. Lifting his voice, Mephisto joined in, singing the song, made immortal by The Tempest, the song he had been singing when Mab and I first encountered him in Chicago:
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  She lov’d not the savor of tar nor of pitch,

  Yet a tailor might scratch her where’er she did itch:

  Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!

  Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,

  Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

  Cornelius came tapping across the ice and joined in the song. Logistilla did, too. She knelt beside Erasmus, hugging his shoulders. When he lifted his head, much surprised, she wiped his face with Ulysses’s handkerchief, which she pulled from her sleeve.

  “There, there, Dear Brother,” she cooed. “We all have bad centuries now and then.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  The Staff of Wisdom

  As we began lumbering forward on mammoth-back, moving across the glacier, a great voice cried out: “Beware! The Queen of Air and Darkness approaches!”

  Immediately, Titus tapped his staff on the sole of his shoe; black fog smelling of newly lit matches billowed from the Staff of Darkness. Mephisto signaled for the mammoth to kneel. Once we were on the ice, he sent it away, so that we did not need to hide it as well.

  We crouched together, peering up nervously. Before the dark cloud thickened, we caught glimpses of Lilith in her horrible chariot flying across the gray sky.

  “Whose voice was that?” Erasmus whispered urgently. “Who warned us just now?”

  No one answered, but Caliban crouched near me. I could make out his silhouette in the green light shed by my wings. From the sounds he made, I suspected he was hiding his club behind his back.

  We knelt on the snow, shivering in the darkness, though there was an emerald glow around my wings and the top of Logistilla’s staff. Theo crawled up beside me and pulled me against him, so that my head rested on his shoulder. He rubbed my back fondly, his face angled up, as if he were straining to catch sight of any threat through the darkness. Mab sat nearby, flipping his lead pipe in his hand. I could hear the swack, thlip, swack as he caught it, released it, and caught it again.