“There were a few rough spots when Mephisto first lost his wits.” Caliban wiped sauce from his face with his sleeve. Mephisto tsked at him and handed him a napkin. “But he has been a good master…”—he grinned—“… brother to me. Who were the ‘A.T.’ I hear that I terrorized?”
“Angelikon Teknon,” Father replied, “Angel Child.”
“You mean that passage meant Caliban was troubling Little Miranda?” Erasmus hit his forehead with a resounding slap. “Oh, Lord! Did I get that one wrong!”
“Who’s next?” Father pointed his finger and moved it around the room until it fell upon Mephisto. “Mephistopheles. You’re the next eldest, and you have your hand up.”
Mephisto indeed did have his hand up. He waved it wildly, grinning his happy, goofy smile. I could not help chuckling. Of all my brothers, Mephisto had surprised me the most. I never would have guessed, back when we first found him singing on a tomato crate, dressed in a filthy poncho, that he had been looking out for the rest of us. I felt quite ashamed.
I was particularly touched by the care he had taken of Theo. While I had sat at home bemoaning Theo’s situation, Mephisto, of all people, had been out there doing something. Theo seemed chagrined, too—especially since he learned that the warning Voice he heard so often came courtesy of Mephisto. His former irritation with his elder brother seemed to be giving way to a grudging respect.
Leaping up, Mephisto cried out, “What was it like, Daddy, ‘pooning an angel?”
My father flushed. “Unions with angelic beings are not as unions between mortals. It was more a meeting of hearts.”
“You mean you’ve been in love with an angel all these centuries, and you’ve never even boinked her?” Rising, Mephisto came over and patted Father on the shoulder. “That must have been difficult for you!”
Father turned as red as his glass of wine. He cleared his throat. “Hmph, right. Moving right along … Theophrastus?”
Theo’s face was now a deep tan, except for the white raccoon mask around his eyes where his goggles had been. Nothing we had accomplished, not even realizing my long-cherished dream of becoming a Sibyl, pleased me as much as seeing Theo’s youthful and healthy face. In amazed delight, I realized that my plan to drag him out of that cozy old farmhouse had worked. I had saved Theo, and the world was a better place for it.
“Father, during the period when Miranda was under the spell … I mean, lacking in free will … how come nobody else noticed?” Theo asked.
“Mephisto noticed, and Titus,” Father replied.
I glanced in surprise at both brothers. Titus ducked his head, embarrassed; Mephisto winked and gave me a thumbs-up.
“They helped me keep an eye on her. They did not believe I was the one behind it, so they did not hesitate to come to me.” Father fixed his keen gaze on Theo who flushed. “As for the rest, they believed Erasmus.”
“Excuse me?” Erasmus glanced up from his food.
Father fixed his keen gaze on him. “Every time Miranda acted oddly, Erasmus gave her behavior a malicious spin, accusing her of having some malevolent motive, such as callousness or spite. Since this offered an explanation for her behavior, the rest of you looked no deeper.”
“Well, I feel like an even bigger idiot! That’s me: Erasmus, the Baby Angel Torturer. If you need me, I’ll be here banging my head against this table.” Erasmus banged his head against the table with an audible crack.
“Stop that!” Logistilla cried. “This is an antique table.”
“Thanks so much for your sisterly concern,” drawled Erasmus, rubbing his head.
Theo leaned forward, a discerning glint in his eye. “And you didn’t set him straight because you thought that it was better that she be misunderstood than that she be understood and mistreated.”
“Exactly,” Father replied. “In my mind, it was the lesser of two evils. If others had known, they might have found ways to order her around like a servant. That Erasmus’s dislike of Miranda might lead to evil in and of itself, I fear I did not take into consideration.”
The tome containing the demonic face began to howl and thrash about in its chains. Father made a gesture, but nothing happened. He made it again, more impatiently, then looked chagrined as he recalled there were no airy servants left to obey his commands. Instead, he nodded to Titus, Erasmus, and Caliban, who wrestled the thing off its pedestal and into the back of the library, where it could carry on howling and wailing without interrupting our conversation.
As we waited, I told Gregor and Theo about seeing my mother and what she had told me about the fallen angels and the nature of Hell. Theo balked, unwilling to believe such heresy. He pointed out that since I had woken up in the field of flowers next to the tumbled Tower of Thorns afterward, there was no evidence that my visit with my mother had really happened. Perhaps, I had dreamt it. Gregor, however, nodded, as if my words confirmed a theory.
“We of the Church have long debated this question. There are those among us who believe that, since God can save a man’s soul right up to the last minute—far after life seems to have fled to the mortal observer—it was possible that everyone had repented, and Hell was empty, because no one had ever gone there. During my second term as pope, I had a good friend, a Franciscan friar, who held this position and would debate it with me at length. He held that we of the Church should all pray that his theory was the true one, for who would wish it to be otherwise. I, on the other hand, thought that I knew better because of our family’s dealings with demons and the like.”
Gregor smiled with weary sheepishness, “Apparently, Brother Laurence was right.”
Mab sat beside me, a second doughnut in hand. Seeing his craggy face brought a sudden pang of sorrow. Our time together was coming to an end. Mab had realized his greatest wish. He was now free. He could leave. He could even go back to his previous state as a bodiless spirit. The thought of him giving up his life as Mab and returning to being the Northwest Wind made me unexpectedly sad, as if I had just learned that a friend was going to die. I had come to rely upon him so. How would I run Prospero, Inc., without him?
Since Erasmus was not back from wrestling the book yet, Father moved on to the next eldest. “Cornelius, do you have a question for me?”
Cornelius nodded slowly, his face impassive behind the royal purple swath of cloth that again bound his useless eyes.
I wondered, suddenly, why we had brought a blind man to Hell with us. And yet, Cornelius had managed to hold his own, an astonishing feat. Of all my brothers, he was still the greatest cipher to me, the one with whom I had the least in common.
And, yet, it had been for love of Cornelius that I had broken my staff to save Erasmus. He had more than paid back my sacrifice when he had turned down his chance to enter Heaven, choosing instead to remain on Earth to help the family and serve mankind. I watched him, speaking softly to Ulysses, who was helping him choose dishes he wished to eat, and I felt quite grateful that I had been given the opportunity to save his favorite brother.
I just wished that he would regain his normal composure. He looked so haggard, so listless, like a mere shadow of his former self.
“Father,” Cornelius said softly, his voice strained. “I have a request, rather than a question. My staff needs to be rebound. It has been acting on its own, at the prompting of its masters in Hell.”
“Oh, Please! Let me speak with Paimon!” the voice from Caliban’s club said. “I shall set him straight!”
Father replied tersely to the Staff of Wisdom. “Vinae, you must stop speaking up without being spoken to! Otherwise, I shall rebind you, too. Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“He’s on our side,” Logistilla had finished tending Titus’s wounds and now sat gingerly upon a pillow, wincing slightly as if her rump pained her, sipping soup. “He told Lilith so to her face.”
“Really!” Father’s face lit up. “Good work, Caliban! As for you, Vinae, be silent. We shall discuss your idea of speaking to King Paimon later. Anything else, Co
rnelius?”
My blind brother shook his head. Father’s brow furrowed. He gazed at him with concern. Reaching forward he lay his hand on Cornelius’s shoulder and squeezed his arm. Cornelius nodded and forced a smile, but his heart was not in it. Father tightened his grip on his shoulder one more time and then turned back to the rest of us.
“Next question, Titus?” Father asked.
Titus had come back when it became clear that three people were too many to carry the groaning tome. Now, he sat again, chewing on his meal. As he looked up, his mouth full of stew and his younger son hanging upon his back, my heart went out to him.
His period as a bear or, perhaps, changing staffs with Gregor, had done him good. He responded much more quickly than he had when last I saw him, a decade ago. Back then, he had seemed to be in a slothlike stupor. He looked so happy now, seated with Logistilla and their younger son—the older one had gone off exploring the library—I prayed he and his family would be granted many happy years together.
Swallowing his stew, Titus said, “I’m still confused about Miranda’s mother. Is she really an angel, and if so, why was it such a secret?”
Father pressed his fingertips together. “Yes, Miranda’s mother is the Virtue Muriel Sophia, the patron angel of the Orbis Suleimani—as I believe you all have surmised.”
“But why keep this secret?” Titus repeated.
“This was kept secret for two reasons,” Father replied. “First, because of a prophesy about a nephilim Sibyl freeing the elves from their tithe to Hell. Those who wished to prevent that prophesy from being fulfilled would have come after her, had they known. Second, as I just said to Theo, I feared that if Miranda’s true nature was known, people might try to manipulate her. It would be easy enough to present her with instructions that appeared to have come from me, and to prompt her to do any number of things. I had such bad experiences with her accidental misinterpretation of my commands, I did not wish to have her abused maliciously.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “That I should not obey you?”
Father shook his head. “I could not be the one to tell you, Child. If you heard it from me, your mind would have interpreted it as an order. You might have tried to act as if you were free, but you would have been doing so under orders, not because of free will. Rather like someone who has been told ‘Go have a good time,’ spending the day at an amusement park they don’t particularly enjoy. I discussed this with your mother a great deal over the years. We both concluded that we had to wait for you to discover the truth on your own.”
“But why didn’t you at least tell her that her mother was an angel?” Theo asked.
“Because that was the greatest secret of all … that Miranda was a candidate for the nephilim Sibyl of prophecy. I could not risk that secret to anyone, not with demons such as Baelor of the Baleful Eye wandering the earth.”
I thought of my mother, the angel, and breathed a long-delayed sigh of relief. Finally, I could step off the roller coaster that had swept me along ever since that day, a mere week ago, when Erasmus had informed me that Portia Lucia di Gardello was not my mother. For a time, I had felt rudderless and lost, yet the truth, when it finally came out, had proved more glorious than even my wildest hopes.
Oddly enough, though, discovering my mother was an angel did not seem as significant as it might have in the past. In the space of seven days, I had gone from believing my mother was Lady Portia, to Sycorax, to Lilith, to Muriel Sophia. Yet, in the end, it did not matter whether my mother was a mortal, a half-ogre witch, a demon, or an angel. I was still myself, and my strengths and weaknesses were mine alone.
Still, I was deeply grateful to know that Father had not lied when he spoke of his admiration for my mother, and I felt honored to be the child of such great love.
Mab raised a hand. “Will you allow follow-up questions?”
Father nodded. “Be my guest.”
Mab flipped through his notebook and, finding the place he was looking for, pulled out his space pen. “If it was a secret that Miranda was the one fulfilling the prophecy, why was Lilith so bent on keeping Miranda from becoming a Sibyl?”
“Lilith was not taking any chances,” Father replied. “She created the Unicorn Hunters in an effort to slay all the Sibyls, and she bound up all the nephilim, both the wicked and the harmless ones. I believe you saw some of them in the cages around me.”
“So, Lilith was out to get Miranda on principle?” Mab asked.
“Exactly,” Father replied. “Had she known the truth, she would have bent much more of her twisted will to harming Miranda.”
“Makes sense,” agreed Mab.
“Gregor?” Father asked.
Gregor looked up from where he sat in his ripped scarlet cardinal’s robes, watching the family with an indulgent smile. I had hardly wept during Gregor’s funeral; that would not be true today. His time on Mars had changed him. While he was still a man of principle, he had acquired a kindness that had been lacking in his youthful self. I recalled how impressive he had looked with his robes flying about him as he drove off the demons in Infernal Milan or when he had blessed Malagigi and shriven Uncle Antonio and tried to reconcile this with my old image of Gregor the Brute. I could not.
He was a good man, Brother Gregor.
Gregor chuckled. “Father, I have so many questions, I have missed so much, that I do not feel it is worth my asking any particular question now. Rather, I would like to take this time to say thank you. I am so very happy to be home again!”
“There is much I do not know as well.” Father also chuckled. “I still have only the vaguest idea of where you were or why you are alive. I shall look forward to a long, cozy conversation with you, anon. Next? Logistilla?”
Logistilla looked up from her Vietnamese soup and smiled with mock sweetness. “I don’t have a question for Father,” she purred. “He’s always told me what I want to know. But I do have a question I’d like to ask of somebody: what will happen to all those creatures who escaped in Hell? The ones who the Serpent of the Wind let out of their cages?”
“Oh, oh! Me! Can I answer? Me!” Mephisto bounced up and down on his chair, spilling Theo’s coffee. Theo glared at him and then sighed, resigned.
“Certainly. Answer away.” Father gestured at Mephisto and took advantage of the momentary lull to get in a bite of his beef and broccoli.
Mephisto leapt in cheerfully. “The Hellwinds will catch most of them—those that were evil—and bring them back there, once a new set of cages has been built. Those who were merely prisoners of Lilith’s, and there were a few, might escape, if they’re lucky. Might help if Gregor prays for them.”
“You can pray too, Mephisto.” Gregor glanced sideways from his meal.
Mephisto shrugged. “Maybe, but you’re better at it.”
“Speaking of freedom and prayer, I wonder how Uncle Antonio is faring,” Logistilla opined.
“Let’s look!” Mephisto replied cheerfully. He whipped out the crystal ball and announced, “Show me Uncle Antonio!”
The mist within the crystal cleared to show a large building of dark gray stone, much like a prison. Within, Uncle Antonio knelt in a small cell that contained a bed, a table, and a chair and nothing more. It must not have been a jail, though, for the cell door was open. Uncle Antonio wore the blue robe and yellow belt of the Brotherhood of Hope. Upon his shoulder was the emblem of the anchor and star.
“Let us pray for him,” Gregor intoned. Obediently, we all lowered our heads and prayed.
When we looked up again, Logistilla gasped and pointed at the cell. “Look at that!”
On the table lay three intertwined rings. Unlike the dull gloomy objects in the cell around them, these rings were made of gold so bright that they seemed to shine. I recognized them, of course; they were the Borromean rings, one of the emblems of the House Sforza, of which we and Uncle Antonio were members.
“How did they get there? They weren’t there a moment ago,” Erasmus asked. He
had just returned from his mission to move the demonic tome. He leaned over Mephisto’s shoulder, staring into the crystal sphere.
“They are a concrete symbol of our prayer,” Gregor replied. “A sign to remind him not to lose his way. Let us hope that he follows it.”
As Mephisto put the ball away, I caught one last glimpse of Uncle Antonio, rising from where he knelt to gaze in astonishment at the golden rings, their light lending substance and solidity to his features.
“Ulysses, I believe you are next.” Father had also been gazing into the ball. His face was calm, but the barest smile crinkled the corners of his eyes as he watched his brother. He sat back down again and regarded our youngest sibling.
I smiled as I realized that I had even grown fonder of Ulysses in this past month, despite his foibles. His easy airy charm, which I had found annoying in the past, now seemed well-meant and appealing. And, while he had abandoned us in times of trouble again and again, he had screwed up his courage and come back to rescue us.
Ulysses asked, “Why didn’t you tell anyone what I was up to—about my acquiring talismans, I mean?” To the rest of us, he said, “I like to think of myself as in the Indiana Jones line of work.” He patted his pistol. “No, perhaps more the Lara Croft line of work, really, except without huge gazang…” He looked from Logistilla to me and fell quiet, muttering, “Right-o!”
“Who?” Gregor whispered to Theo.
“A female Allan Quartermain,” Theo whispered back.
Gregor frowned. “How quaint.”
I felt a moment of sympathy for Gregor, who had dropped out of sight the year after American women got the vote. Modern life would be quite a surprise.
“Yes, I’m quite curious about this, too.” I turned to Father, eager to hear how he would answer my brother’s question. “When I complained about Ulysses, you did not breathe a word about what he was doing.”
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