The Damiano Series

by R. A. MacAvoy

  There was no hope she could catch a disembodied spirit, however,

  and furious though she was (with the taste of the Devil’s blood in her memory, if not in her mouth), she had half a mind to give up and return to San Gabriele.

  Gaspare deserved some explanation, after all.

  But against all expectation, she saw the Liar resume his damaged wyvern form in the sky high above her. She flapped harder to catch up, wishing she had studied the shape of the chimney swift instead of that of the dove.

  She could not gain on the creature, but neither did she fall behind. Now they were so high above the earth that she was giddy, and her small lungs worked like bellows in the thin air. The wyvern, too, seemed affected, for its wings beat more slowly and blood sprayed in sunlit droplets from its wounded neck. It looked behind it and hissed.

  Then Saara’s giddiness grew very serious, for down seemed suddenly to become sideways, and the dove lost its purchase in the air and fell sickeningly before righting itself in a different attitude.

  Saara looked around her and cursed, for her perceptions had been quite correct; down had become sideways, and below her naked tucked feet she beheld a broken regiment of peaks, touched here and there with snow. What it was that had happened to bring her here she was not quite sure, and how to return, if there was any question of return, she had no idea.

  But the wyvern was still ahead of her, and that was what counted. She chased the scaly thing down among the mountain peaks; it seemed so weary now and weak from loss of blood that she slowly gained on it.

  A spirit could not be destroyed utterly: not even the spirits of little things like mice and frogs, let alone a strong spirit older than mankind. But if she could get over the wyvern again and crash it into the rocks below, then she could do harm to the Liar—oh yes, real, satisfying harm.

  With the prize so near, Saara’s own weariness dropped away. She saw the wyvern disappear behind the shoulder of a gaunt gray peak, but she found it again in moments. Once more she lost the creature and once more found it.

  Now purplish blood spattered the bare stone shelves below as the wyvern snaked its way deeper into the cracks of the mountains. It was heading for one high, solitary cone shape on the horizon. Perhaps there to make a stand.

  Saara pressed still harder, for she did not want to encounter this thing on the ground, where even a bear of the north would be no match for the half-dragon. She wanted to drop it from the sky—to smash it to jelly. She was almost upon it.

  But the wyvern, with all the appearance of terror, put on a burst of speed and together they approached the face of the mountain, tiny beak to writhing great tail. Saara cried in fury, and the wyvern bellowed back its wrath.

  There was a window in the sheer cliff of the mountain: a perfect, tall, arched window, larger than the doors of men. The dove gave one astounded blink and cry, watching the wyvern disappear into it. She beat her wings wildly to the front, but it was far too late to stop her own progress, and Saara fluttered rolling into Satan’s watchtower.

  Lucifer, seated in his tall chair, caught the bird easily as it skidded across the table. He prisoned her within the compass of his fingers and lifted her, feet upward, into the light for better viewing.

  In neither his appearance nor demeanor was there any trace of the wyvern he had been: no scales, no blood. He was in his most usual and comfortable form, that of a king in red (red showed off his golden hair to good advantage), and the family features rested agreeably on his face. He regarded the rumpled dove with a certain curiosity.

  But none of this is to say he was in a good mood, or that he had forgotten the jaws of the white bear on the wyvern’s neck. Pink flesh showed between the rutched feathers and down of the dove’s breast and belly. The little legs kicked, and the head which protruded from between his finger and thumb squirmed right and left. Lucifer felt the tremor of her heart, quick and nervous as a tree of leaves in the wind.

  He discovered that when he squeezed the creature, her tiny twiglike beak opened, and when he released the pressure of his hand, it closed again. He amused himself in this fashion for a minute or so, and then he said calmly, “You have a sadly inflated idea of your own abilities, little hen.”

  Suddenly the dove writhed in his hand, and at the expense of a few feathers, twisted around enough to deliver a sound peck on the skin between his thumb and forefinger.

  Lucifer cursed and shifted his grip. He called Kadjebeen, and before many seconds had passed, the small raspberry-shaped demon had erupted through the door in the floor.

  “Bring me string,” said Satan very quietly. Kadjebeen disappeared once more through the door.

  After the demon’s disappearance, Lucifer’s complacent smile returned. Kadjebeen was his current favorite among the palace staff, being quite handy and even more afraid of him than most. Very soon he returned with a spool of red twine, which he carefully tied around one of the dove’s legs.

  The other end of the length of twine was attached to one of the barbed turrets of the image of the palace on the table. Kadjebeen bit his lips anxiously as this was done, for he feared damage to his handiwork.

  Lucifer was aware of his servant’s trepidation, and it gave him a good deal of satisfaction. Throwing the spool of red twine at Kadjebeen’s head, he pointed to a far corner of the room, to which the demon retired.

  Saara was dumped onto the tabletop, where she lay panting and blinking. After a moment or two Lucifer found the sight of the tied dove less than interesting. He gestured vaguely toward her and her bird shape melted into Saara shape, complete with bare feet and embroidered blue dress, but no bigger than the dove had been.

  Saara plucked at the red band around her ankle, but it was so much rusty iron. “Filthy liar,” she spat once more, somewhat wearily. “You cannot touch me.”

  Lucifer giggled. “But my dear little pullet! Obviously I have touched you.

  “And you made it inevitable that I should,” he added, in the tone of exaggerated seriousness which adults reserve for talking intelligently with children.

  And which drives all intelligent children wild.

  “If a man gives me the slightest encouragement, I am able to help him hither to my fastness. But you—how lovely it was—came here under your own power, almost against my very will.”

  “I am not a man,” said Saara, sitting with one leg folded and the other knee propped. “And I still say you cannot touch me.”

  Lucifer smiled wider than was his wont, until Saara could see the serrated edges of his teeth. “It doesn’t matter that you are not a man, for ‘the male,’ (he quoted) ‘embraces the female.’ “ He laughed at his own rather stale wit and poked her belly with his little finger.

  Saara had never been to a school in her life and her knowledge of grammer was embryonic. “What on earth are you talking about, you dirty thing? Nobody would embrace you!”

  Then the whimsical light went out of his eyes. “Scrawny pullet,” he barked, and he ground his teeth at her. “I will derive a great deal of pleasure out of pulling you apart.”

  Saara looked directly at him, and then through him, and finally turned her back on him and sat staring at the windowless wall of the model to which she was tied.

  Lucifer’s high color rose higher, from carnelian to the hue of fresh-butchered meat. Hissing, he plucked up the red thread and dangled the woman by her ankle. Her brown braids swung below her head, and her dress crawled up to her armpits. Sniggering, he pulled it off, leaving her to dangle naked. Bestowing this additional humiliation upon Saara did a lot toward restoring the Devil’s temper.

  Her body was lithe, and blushed like the skin of a peach.

  “You know, little insignificant peeper, that you weren’t even the sparrow I was out to snare? Not even THAT important.”

  Saara climbed up her own leg and then up the length of red string until she hung upright by her two hands. She didn’t seem to care or notice that she was naked.

  “I know,” she replied. “It w
as pretty obvious you were after Gaspare. Well, you won’t be able to use that trick on him again, dressing up like Damiano. Gaspare must have seen an eyeful.”

  The red cord trembled with Lucifer’s annoyance. “Have you no sense but to hang there and throw offense at me, savage? Don’t you know how I’m going to make you suffer?”

  “I know how you made Damiano suffer,” was her undisturbed retort. “Yet it didn’t get you anywhere, did it?”

  The tiny woman’s body was spinning around with the natural movement of the twine, and the chamber of four windows passed under her review. She noted it as carefully as she could, especially the vista outside the window by which she had entered.

  Obviously they were not really in the Alpine mountains. They were probably in no definite place at all; Saara had enough experience in the realms of magic to know that its geography was unpredictable. When her spinning brought her around to Kadjebeen, squatting in his dim corner, she actually laughed.

  “What an unfortunate creature!” she cried aloud. “I wonder how it can manage, looking like that!”

  The raspberry-shaped and raspberry-colored demon did not particularly like being laughed at, but he found some comfort in the knowledge that this stranger had immediate sympathy with his biggest problem in life. His Magnificence (who had had a clear hand in the molding of Kadjebeen) had never deigned to express any interest in his servant’s consequent plight.

  Still Saara spun, coming back around to face the Devil’s perfect features and exposed fangs.

  “So you noticed little Kadjebeen, did you?” Lucifer snickered, enjoying his captive’s dizzying movement. “How would you like to be turned into another like him?”

  But Saara had spent too much time as a bird to be made motion sick. “You can’t,” she replied casually. “I am not afraid of hunger, so you have no power over my belly or mouth, and I am not afraid of YOU, so you cannot make me shrink like that against the ground. And as for his eyes—well, they must bug out from fear, as well, for he can have no great desire to be able to look back at that face of his!”

  “Enough elementary lessons in transmigration,” Lucifer growled. He blew Saara into a faster spin.

  “There is, after all, a reason I have brought you here.”

  “YOU brought ME?” The spin added a peculiar tremolo to Saara’s words. “A moment ago you said I came in spite of you.”

  “Some of each,” replied the Devil equably, and losing interest, he dropped the whirling woman to the tabletop. “It is of no account by which way you came. Nor does it really matter that you’re not Gaspare of San Gabriele. What matters is that you are a good enough bait to draw my brother Raphael to me.”

  Saara had landed on her feet, still holding the length of red twine in her hands. She stared blankly at the huge carmine face above her. “Raphael? You mean the Chief of Eagles? You mean the music teacher?”

  Lucifer’s amusement spread all over his face. “We certainly have the same party in mind, little witch. Raphael the many-feathered warbler, who happens to be my disgusting lesser brother.”

  The naked woman rolled a coil of twine and sat herself down upon it. She examined Lucifer appraisingly. “They say the eagle is kin to the bald-headed vulture—who also has a very red face, like yours.”

  In an instant’s ungovernable fury Lucifer spat at Saara: spat an incendiary spittle which exploded around her like Greek fire. She barely had time to roll herself into a ball before the flash was around her. To the stuffiness of the air was added the stench of burnt hair.

  Saara uncoiled, slightly pinker than she had been and missing most of her braids. Her heart was pounding and she could feel the blood rushing into her face and even through her ears.

  But none of this was fear. Instead she felt a mad exhaltation, as it seemed her long life had at last come to some point.

  “You picked a bad bait to use, if you want to attract the Chief of Eagles,” she said casually, examining a slightly charred fingernail. “We haven’t gotten along very well.”

  “I wonder who you HAVE gotten along with, you tusked sow!” growled the Devil, but he was unable to hide the fact that this information displeased him. He drummed enormous fingers on the tabletop (his rhythm was off).

  “That hardly matters,” he said at last. “Raphael is the sort who would not let a small thing like justly despising you stand in the way of self-sacrifice. He is quite perverse that way, my brother. In fact, a mortal he dislikes may be the better for my purpose.” Then Lucifer yawned.

  “Likely ANY mortal would have done.”

  Boredom recalled Lucifer to his own intention. “Why do I sit here communing with this bit of insignificant spleen?” he murmured. “I need only raise my voice now, and…”

  Suddenly the witch on the table seemed infected by madness. She rose from her stringy chair and began to jump up and down, her round breasts jouncing in opposition to her movement. “He’ll blast you, windbag! The Eagle will tear you limb from limb. He’ll turn you into a bright-red leather handbag. He’ll…” and then Saara stopped bouncing long enough to perform an extremely complex and obscene gesture which she had learned in the Italies. When she felt she once more had Lucifer’s attention, she began to curse him in earnest.

  Forbearance was not the Devil’s strongest attribute. Yet his only visible reaction to this torrent of abuse was a momentary tightening of the jaw. “If you didn’t believe I could damage this spirit you claim to hate” (Saara actually had claimed no such thing), “you would not be so eager now to have me kill you.

  “You will just have to be patient,” he adjured the tiny woman, and turned from the table.

  Lucifer looked out each of his windows in turn, wasting not a glance on Kadjebeen, who was still squatting obediently in his corner, feeling his mouth with his spidery fingers and staring ruefully at his stumpy short legs.

  In the Prince of Earth a fierce emotion was rising: a satisfaction which thought itself joy but bore more resemblance to pride. Like a player of some intricate, slow-moving board game, he had plotted out a hundred future moves in this bitter duel with Raphael (more bitter because he suspected that Raphael was not even aware of it as a duel) and had decided that he could not lose.

  Meanwhile the Lappish curses continued from the little witch tied to the model on the table. Only Kadjebeen listened.

  “Raphael,” called Lucifer composedly, in a voice no louder than that he had used to call his servant. “Raphael, my dear brother, why don’t you drop by and see me?”

  There was a minute’s silence. Lucifer knew this didn’t indicate that Raphael hadn’t heard him, or that the roads were bad. Sharpening his very flexible voice, the Devil added, “I advise you very strongly to make the visit, brother. You will find you are not my only guest.”

  Suddenly a wind swirled through the windows of the chamber, as though whatever barrier had kept the airs of the world from entering had been breached. It was a confused wind, as the mint dryness of the Alps met the breath of orchids, while sand and sandalwood clashed with pine. But it was very fresh. It made Saara lift her head and sniff, and little Kadjebeen, in his corner, began to burble with worry.

  The air flickered with a light like sun filtered through a net of pearls: a soft radiance which rippled and danced. It was the gleam given off by the white wings of Raphael.

  The face was the same as Lucifer’s, though perhaps there was a greater virility in the high, sharp set of Lucifer’s cheekbones. Lucifer’s hair, too, was a richer color, to match the more-than-ruddiness of his skin.

  But Lucifer’s eyes were a pale and watchful blue, while those of Raphael were summer evening itself, with stars shining through darkness.

  He was dressed very simply, almost sketchily, in a white garment which Lucifer called (under his breath) “the same old undershirt.” He was shorter and slighter than Lucifer. But the thing which distinguished Raphael from his brother was, of course, that frame of enormous, opalescent, galleon-sail wings: wings which seemed to be nothing
more than the radiance of his nature taking on form.

  So although Lucifer was striking, Raphael was beautiful, and no creature who had ever had the luck to see him had denied his beauty, or had come away unaffected by the sight.

  Raphael had never seen himself, nor had he ever had any desire to see himself.

  Kadjebeen saw Raphael and his blue eyes yearned forward on their stalks. He regarded the face of light and the brilliant wings— yes, especially the wings—and he thought in his artisanly way that he’d like to build something that looked like that.

  Saara gazed at Raphael with an expression akin to pain. She was not considering his face or form, however, but his danger. And as she remembered that Damiano had loved the angel, she also remembered that she had not always been understanding about that. She turned her head away.

  Lucifer looked at his brother and flinched; the Devil himself flinched and uttered a strangled cry, for he was as sensitive to beauty as any creature born. It hurt him.

  Raphael saw his brother’s wincing without surprise. Lucifer always reacted to the sight of him like that. He regarded Lucifer with his own, quite different feelings. “What is it, Satan? What wicked deed is in your hands now?”

  Lucifer’s great eyes rounded and he lifted his hands in protest, if not to heaven, then at least to the sky. “And they dare to call me cruel! He convicts me of crime without knowing there has been a crime, and though he is kin to me, refuses me my proper name!

  “Raphael, you are nothing but a bigot—a narrow-minded and conventional burgher among a similar rabble, fearing to be anything more or less than your neighbor.” Lucifer sighed with sad disapproval, but he found his eyes sliding away from that visage of light.

  “But no matter, brother. I brought you here only to help me identify a creature. You have always been so interested in… animal husbandry.

  “See,” he proclaimed, gesturing openhanded toward Saara on the table. “It attacked me in Lombardy and hung around my neck halfway home.”

  As he approached the table; Lucifer waved his hand once more and a buff-colored dove appeared, wings spread and beak open in threat. At another motion of Lucifer’s the dove became a snowy owl which blinked, hissing, in the light of day.