Overhead, some flying thing screeched, followed by a rush of wings. We held our breath. Should Lilith detect that our cloud was somehow different from the other black fogs, we would be sitting ducks, unable to see her coming.
Twice, then three times, the screeches and flapping grew near, as if the Queen of Air and Darkness were circling the valley. We waited, silent and motionless, except for Ulysses, who gave a low moan of fear. I wondered if one of our siblings had taken away his staff, as he did not teleport away.
Eventually, the flapping retreated.
“Is the coast clear?” Caliban asked.
“Lilith has departed,” boomed the great voice.
I recognized the voice. It was the voice that had cried out during the battle by the Bridge over the River Styx, warning us of the corrosive properties of Focalor’s armor.
Titus rapped his staff against the stone, turning it off. The darkness would soon disperse in the breeze.
“Yahoo, Lilith’s gone! She doesn’t know where we are, nana nana boo boo!” sang Mephisto. I could hear his feet tapping on the stones as he danced.
A new voice spoke out of the darkness, soft as silk, sending sensual ripples from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. “I shall tell her though … unless you return what should be mine.”
“Seir of the Shadows!” Mab hissed.
I drew my fighting fan and leapt to my feet. Around me, I could hear the others pulling their weapons and readying themselves. Theo grabbed my arm and maneuvered me behind him, so that we stood back to back, facing in opposite directions. Mab stepped into the emerald glow cast by my wings and joined us. Now, the three of us stood with our backs to one another, facing outward.
“Go away, Inkie!” shouted Mephisto. “Nothing here belongs to you.”
Seir’s voice came lilting through the gloom. “Oh, but it does. A certain darkness-issuing staff that I accidentally left in Miranda’s boudoir. If I do not return with it, I will be severely punished. I am sure that the argument ‘but I was overwhelmed by the sweet charms of a certain lady’ will not go far with the Queen of Air and Darkness.”
“What was an incubus doing in your bedroom?” Logistilla cried, appalled. “Don’t tell me you succumbed to his blandishments!”
“Certainly not!” I exclaimed, exasperated.
Seir laughed. “Oh, but we did spend the night together, did we not, my sweet? I remember it all so well: the firelight, the taste of your kisses, the intimate details about your family you confided to me, the secrets of the Orbis Suleimani you whispered into my ear…”
I heard Cornelius’s sharp indrawn breath.
Theo stiffened. I felt him move, and heard the soft whine as his staff began warming up. “Enough of this. Stop besmirching my sister’s name!”
“Did you really kiss him?” Mephisto chimed in. “What was it like? I hear kissing Inkies is just glorious!”
“I thought he was Ferdinand.” My cheeks grew uncomfortably hot.
“Tricked by an incubus, really!” Logistilla huffed.
“Seir suckered!” Mephisto responded gleefully.
“You could not have had Gregor’s staff all that time, Miranda!” Erasmus exclaimed. “I carried your things from my house myself. It was not among them.”
“No, Seir left the staff on Father’s Island, just before the angel came.”
“Was that the same angel you told me about?” Seir’s voice flowed as sweetly as syrup. “What was her name? Oh, yes: Muriel Sophia.”
“Miranda! You didn’t!” Erasmus shouted.
Cornelius’s voice shook with rage. “Since the time of Solomon, we have kept secret the name of the guardian of our order, and you blurted it out to the enemy?”
“No, Cornelius.” I pressed a cool hand against my burning cheeks. “All I said was that I met her once.”
“She speaks the truth, my blind buffoon. I had no notion that this was the coveted name of the angel who protects the Circle of Solomon until you told me yourself, just now.” Seir’s voice had moved closer. “But I thank you for sharing this pearl of wisdom with me. Queen Lilith will be pleased. So pleased, she may forgive me for losing the Staff of Darkness. So, I shall depart, for I doubt words alone—even my honeyed words—shall win me back the staff.”
“Where is he?” Theo asked. His staff began to hum. “It’s pitch-black over there. Is everyone out of the way in that direction?”
Logistilla said, “Are you crazy, Theo? How in the would could we tell what direction you mean by ‘that’ one?”
“So for now, Miranda,” Seir sighed, “I will away, but know that each moment we are parted, I shall be planning for our next delight. For I love you with all my heart and cannot do otherwise…” His voice softened, “Being who I am.”
“All Inkies love all women. Isn’t it romantic?” Mephisto piped cheerfully, but I was left with the eeriest feeling Seir had meant something else entirely.
The wind picked up, and the darkness began to blow away. I found myself face-to-face with Erasmus and Cornelius. My cheeks still aflame, I asked roughly, “Is there even any point in my trying to defend myself?”
“All these many years, all our precautions, all for naught.” Cornelius wrung his hands. There was a tear upon his cheek, just below the bandana, which was damp below his eyes. “If the demons know which angel we call, they can trick and beguile us, coming to us in her guise and misleading us with false prophecies. We are lost.”
I expected venom and fireworks from Erasmus. But he merely sat down on a boulder and leaned forward, resting his head on his knees. He looked haggard, as if he had turned his staff upon himself and aged two decades.
He said flatly, “I don’t know what to think anymore.”
* * *
MEPHISTO summoned up the mammoth again, and we continued our trek toward Father. We moved more quickly this time, for the mammoth found a medial moraine running the direction we wanted to go. Climbing up onto this icy ridge, it walked along its flat rounded length at a good clip, much more quickly than a man could cross this terrain. Very soon, Antonio’s procession fell away behind us.
Eurynome shall never have another Sibyl, and the elves shall be forced to pay their tithe to Hell forever.
It was not just me. The existence of all Sibyls was under attack. No wonder I had not been able to find any Sibyls, even though their access to Water of Life should have made them immortal. The Queen of Air and Darkness had murdered them!
She had even tried to kill me, or her Unicorn Hunters had, back during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First. Only the vigilance of my brothers and the might of their staffs had saved me. How many other attacks upon me through the centuries might have been orchestrated by Lilith? I wept the death of my fellow servants of Eurynome, all those brave Sibyls and Handmaidens who had not been so fortunate as to have a staff-wielding family—not to mention a guardian angel—to protect them.
If Lilith was my mother, she did not seem to be happy about it. Could it be that she did not know? I could understand how fathers might not know their own children, but mothers? You think they would at least have a clue.
One phrase of Antonio’s echoed through my thoughts again: No woman who is consumed with hatred for her own brother could ever feel the grand compassion required of Sibyls.
I thought back to the young boy who had guided Cornelius, the boy who was apparently Erasmus’s direct descendant, to Caurus, to the elf maid in Father Christmas’s kitchen, to the young woman in the plum parka at the Lincoln Memorial, to the old lady crossing the highway in Chicago … all the way back to the moment in the Great Hall when I decided to save Mab. The words of the Book of the Sibyl returned to me: To look into the eyes of another and see one’s self: this is the greatest of gifts, the true Gift of the Sibyl.
After five hundred years, I had finally gained one of the necessary prerequisites for Sibylhood: the great compassion—empathy for others. And to think that I had feared I was under some kind of attack!
Ho
t tears streamed down my cheeks. Softly, I cursed Osae the Red for what he had stolen from me. Then, I cursed Seir, for I would never have allowed Osae to approach, had he not looked like Ferdinand. Of course, I would never have trusted Ferdinand, if flashes of Astreus had not shone through—I thought of the moment by the hearth at Prospero’s Mansion, when his Ferdinand mask slipped, and he spoke of “the time when the truth would be known about the queen.” That was what betrayed me. I recognized that as a moment of true sincerity and, thus, was taken in by the rest.
And yet, I could not bring myself to curse Astreus.
* * *
THE white expanse of snow went on and on. I stared ahead into the icy vista, squinting, as if that could somehow help me see Father more quickly. I could not wait to see his dear face, and yet, thinking of my father left me confused and disoriented. Whom should I be picturing in my mind: the wise, loving man I thought I knew? Or the subtle, deceptive man whom others claimed him to be?
Father had devoted his life to keeping the supernatural from dominating mankind. This duty ran counter to his true interest, which was to delve into the secrets of the universe and uncover the hidden nature of things. For him, subduing spirits and dangerous entities was not difficult, but protecting humans from magic also meant stopping others from using sorcery.
Father was a compassionate man. He found this obligation especially burdensome and often grumbled to me about it. He understood exactly why a man or woman might wish to delve into the mysteries of the occult, and he hated to put an end to such pursuits. At times, a budding sorcerer could be embraced within the Orbis Suleimani. Not everyone was suited to join; however, some were too independent, too selfish, too unwilling to hide their successes from the eyes of their fellows, or merely female. Women were not allowed. Then Father faced the quandary of having to prevent another from doing what he himself loved best.
This weighed upon him, and yet he did not allow it to diminish his joie de vivre. He had a keen sense of humor and was a huge fan of practical jokes, a quality unfortunately inherited by both Titus and Ulysses. One favorite Father used many times was to enchant a cow so that its milk ran green or purple or even blood red, depending upon the season of the year and who he was attempting to startle. We lost more dairy maids that way, though once he managed to convince the whole village that St. Patrick had blessed our cows upon his holy day. Another time he had some poor sweet thing leaving elaborate gifts for the local leprechauns, though he rewarded her in the end by leaving her clues to a real pot of gold (made by Logistilla, of course). Erasmus still holds that a similar incident during our stay in Koln, Germany, led to the tale of the Elves and the Shoemaker.
Father loved using his magic to startle the ignorant, especially if he felt the person was deliberately obtuse. He was generous as well, and often rewarded anyone who responded with spirit or gumption. I objected to this behavior, cautioning that frightening the locals was a good way to get us burned or at least run out of town, but he always seemed to know exactly how far he could go—a gift he did not manage to pass on to his children, several of whom have gotten us into serious trouble due to their lack of Father’s perspicacity.
While his sense of humor occasionally distressed me, I could not think of any time that his actions had been more than mischievous. He also used his sorcery for great good. At times, he took it upon himself to act as an unofficial judge, following in the shoes of Solomon. If a neighbor were committing a crime and getting away with it, Father would use his magic to plague the man until the objectionable behavior ceased. Or if someone was unjustly harmed, Father would use his powers to put things right. Other times, however, equally objectionable things would go on around us, and Father would take no interest. I was never able to discover the criteria by which he decided when to interfere.
Erasmus’s exclamation broke my reverie. “Oh! This is excruciating!” He sat hunched over with his legs crossed, drumming his fingers against his knees. “There must be something we can do to pass the time. Anyone for chess?”
Several of my siblings volunteered, but as there was no way to keep even a makeshift board balanced atop the mammoth, limiting his opponents to those of us who could play chess in their head. Titus and Logistilla both made a go at it. Erasmus crushed both of them.
Erasmus began drumming his fingers again while staring impatiently at the unrelenting white expanse strafed with rocks and mud before us. Finally, Theo growled, “Erasmus, why don’t you stop torturing the rest of us and just play Miranda.”
“Because I swore I would never play Miranda again,” Erasmus replied.
Silence ensued. We rode along, the emptiness wearing upon us as we all squinted ahead, seeking any sign of Father. All was bleak, flat, and icy. Finally, Erasmus sighed, “Dash it all! Miranda, Queen’s Knight Attack.”
It had been so long since I had had a decent opponent that I could not help smiling. Interlacing my fingers, I stretched my hands and replied, “Pawn to Queen’s Four.”
In this manner, we passed quite a bit of our undulating mammoth ride, before Erasmus finally forced me to tip my figurative king.
* * *
WE came over an icy hill to find a forest of cages made of ice spread out upon the glacier before us. Within, men and women hunkered down, withdrawn, or stood with their hands frozen to the bars, shouting at the world. What little we could hear of their ravings overflowed with spite.
Some of the cages stood alone, while others were surrounded by a flurry of wraiths striving to enter the cage and seize their inhabitants. The wraiths appeared to fall into two types: souls of the dead who stabbed and grabbed at the incarcerated figures, and fainter ghosts who whipped about the cages. A few cages had so many of the latter that they were ringed like the planet Saturn.
Ulysses tilted his head back and spoke to Caliban, who was behind him. Pointing at the bar of an empty cage, he hissed, “Psst, Old Chap! I dare you to slide off the old mammoth and lick that pole.”
“I may be an ex-wild-man-of-the-wood, but I am not an idiot,” Caliban replied. His chin rested upon his club, which he held between his legs.
“Oh, come on. I’ll give you a quid!”
“What’s a quid?” Caliban asked.
“Americans!” Ulysses exclaimed in exasperation. Leaning forward, he asked, “What are those things anyway? Those flying blokes?”
“The faint ghostly ones are memories of the victims, harmed by the people in the cages,” Mephisto explained.
“What are the more solid ones?” I asked.
“The victims themselves. People harmed by the one within the cage they circle. They are so consumed by rage and revenge that they continue to be bound to him, haunting and tormenting him, rather than going on to their final resting places,” Mephisto said. “In those cases, the cages are as much a protection as a prison.”
“What is the sin of those within?” Gregor asked.
“Hatred,” Mephisto replied. “They cut themselves off from others, leaving their lives a barren Arctic waste.”
“Ah-ha!” Theo exclaimed.
“What is it?” I asked.
Theo chuckled sadly, “It’s just that I finally understand why Mephisto knows all these things. I’d been wondering when he took up the study of the circle of Hell.”
Beside me atop the musky mammoth, Mab had opened his notebook to his Possible Traitors page. He circled Antonio and drew lines through the other names on his list.
“You had Antonio on there already?” I asked, surprised. “When did you add him?”
“In that dratted Milan place, when I saw the throne. I remembered Malagigi saying that he came upon your uncle ‘enthroned in some infernal palace.’ I couldn’t help wondering if that was the spot. Never got around to mentioning it, though, because other stuff came up. Lots of other stuff.”
* * *
ERASMUS snapped his fingers and moaned. Logistilla had wrapped handkerchiefs around his bloody hands, but that did not dull the pain when he moved them. “I kn
ew I recognized the voice that cried out in warning! So he is here! Miranda, why did you lie to us?”
“Lie about what?” I asked, confused. The rhythmic motion of the mammoth had been lulling me to sleep. “Really, Erasmus, now that we have had the truth from Uncle Antonio, it would be nice if you stopped accusing me of everything that pops into your head.”
I might not have known what Erasmus was talking about, but Caliban did. He spoke up. “She did not lie. It is I who am carrying him.”
Erasmus barked out a short laugh of utter amazement. “You mean instead of a staff, King Vinae now resides in the Club of Wisdom? Oh, that sounds like Father’s sense of humor!”
“No wonder you didn’t let your weapon get burned up in the lava.” I laughed, giving Caliban an encouraging smile. He smiled back sheepishly.
Erasmus then asked wistfully, “I don’t suppose you could ask King Vinae whether the Philosopher’s Stone requires two parts zinc or three?”
“Master Prospero ordered me not to let you talk to him.” Caliban sounded apologetic.
“More’s the pity.” Erasmus sighed dejectedly.
“What do you need the Philosopher’s Stone for?” I interjected. “The golden donkey of King Midas—or King Midas himself transformed into a donkey, I’m not sure which—is in the Vault. Our family shall never again want for gold.” I shuddered as I recalled my encounter with the thing and how close I had come to being added to the family treasure store myself.
“You stay out of this.” Erasmus sounded almost cheerful for the first time since his encounter with Uncle Antonio. “It’s not the gold; it’s the principle of the matter. I’ve spent more decades pursuing the Philosopher’s Stone than most sages get to live. Someday, I’d like to crack the secret.” He paused. “The donkey of King Midas? When did that come to be there?”
“Must have been Ulysses,” I replied.
“Guilty as charged, old girl.” Ulysses casually took a bite of an apple left from what Mephisto’s hoodlums had brought the night before. There was also a bit of honey left and a bag of carrots. They were being passed around the mammoth. “Though Father had to help me with the donkey. That was a tricky one!” he added. “Thought I was a goner for a minute there! Could have spent the rest of my existence as one of those golden knickknacks on display in Erasmus’s mansion.”
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