The Illusions In Between

by J M Robison

  The other side is a cavernous chamber which rumors have speculated to be a pre-Christ pagan church for Vesta. An iron-work cage, bolted to the stone wall, holds six girls. I had clung to some hope that my English girl was, after all, a victim, but she is not here. I concede to believe I saw wrong. I’ll visit Ferdiano and tell him to let the baby go.

  The only light comes from a lantern on the floor in front of the cage. One Camorra holds a crossbow on the cage’s door while the second opens it to set a water bucket and an empty bucket on the floor inside, followed by three loaves of bread and a link of hard sausage. The sausage I know is expensive, and I’m curious which poor Camorra was forced to afford it out of his own pay.

  They close and lock the gate, taking the lantern with them into a smaller room where they will live until the girls are removed.

  The girls remain in a drugged stupor on the floor; they will be kept subdued until they leave. Chances of someone hearing their shouts are slim, but quiet prisoners are easier to manage.

  Now that I’ve verified the girls are being kept here, I leave. The boat still won’t come for two days, and the Camorra will gather more girls before then. As long as the Camorra continue to come up short of girls to sell, eventually the boat will stop coming.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Zadicayn

  I’m startled awake when a stick jabs my ribs, accompanied with an “Andare a casa. È dopo il coprifuoco.”

  I scrub my eyes to clear them and see who’s speaking.

  “Parli inglese?” Jaicom asks.

  I’ve cleared my eyes to see a middle-aged man in a black-buttoned suit and a red baldric across his chest.

  The man shakes his head at Jaicom’s question. “Hai bisogno di hotel o casa?”

  “Hotel?” Jaicom asks.

  “Hotel? Si.” The man backs up to his horse, standing idle on the pavement. He mounts, looking at us, and waves at us to follow as he taps his horse forward.

  “What about Joseara?” I grab Jaicom’s arm, panic rising in me again.

  “I don’t know. But it’s late, and if Rome has a curfew. Best we follow it, so we don’t end up in jail.”

  I release his sleeve. Jaicom adjusts his clothes and plods after the horse and the beckoning man. I look around the square again, searching for Joseara as if she might be leaning against a building, napping beside the fountain, striding toward me this very moment. The square is empty.

  I follow after Jaicom and the horse.

  We’re led down a paved street, between two identical temples with iconic Grecian pillars gracing their porches.

  The walk isn’t far, though Jaicom’s leg would disagree. He limps heavier and heavier on it until we are stopped in front of a building that looks identical to all the other buildings shoulder-to-shoulder with it.

  “Mozart Hotel Roma,” the man on the horse says.

  “I believe he’s brought us to a hotel.” Jaicom grabs the handle and pushes the green door open.

  I linger in the dark, looking down the street. “Joseara?” I call out.

  “Andare all'interno,” the man barks, pointing to the door. “Sono già stato abbastanza gentile da portarti qui e non–”

  I step inside and shut the door. Not knowing what he was saying, better not to test Jaicom’s theory on us getting thrown in a dungeon being out after curfew.

  Jaicom beckons me over to where he stands with the innkeeper, exchanging coins and penning both our names into the innkeeper’s book. His face glows red with rage. “We’re sharing a room. I don’t care if we have to share a bed. I’m not spending thirty francs for one night here. Tomorrow, we will find something cheaper, or I’m going to run out of money and be stuck as a pauper in Rome the rest of my life.”

  “I shan’t allow that.” I hand the man my Fae-coins-turned-francs–we will have to find a bank in the morning to exchange currency–in exchange for Jaicom’s, and accept the key he displays in return. We’ll have to get our currency switched over to florins, so we aren’t roped into paying too much. The innkeeper’s smile looks too big.

  We enter a hallway beneath a stone arch; faded red carpet made less cheery by the blasé paintings blurred over by gas lamps every tenth step down the hall. The room we enter is clean and in perfect harmony with the rest of Rome, with a painting of the Coliseum above the bed and a small white bust of a curly-haired man on the side table to watch over us with blind eyes as we sleep. There is only one bed.

  Jaicom sits down with a heavy sigh, rubbing knuckles into the spot on his leg where a bullet found home six years ago. “I’m tempted to ask you to remove my pain, so I can sleep.”

  Now is definitely not the time to tell Jaicom I don’t have my amulet. “Taking the pain away would remove future pain as well, so ye might have a dog gnawing on thy leg and not know it. Pain is a protection from future pain.”

  He shakes his head with a grin. “You’re only proving to me you aren’t as powerful as you once had me convinced. That’s okay. Your secret is safe with me. Sometimes all you need is to convince people, eh?”

  I walk around the opposite side of the bed and sit down, removing my boots. Jaicom lays his coat, hat, shoes, and cane neatly on the chaise longue. He lays down and, despite his pain, sleeps immediately, accustomed to worse accommodations on this trip, and not bothered by such things like Black Magicians, missing wife and son, and lacking the amulet to do anything about either of them.

  Joseara disappearing to betray us to the Illuminati crosses my mind, but too many abnormalities to the completion of that plan shut the thought down. Joseara nearly died because she helped me escape the undercroft, and was directly responsible in returning my amulet six years ago.

  Her few remarks about her loneliness and struggle to find a purpose in life come together to form a picture of her killing herself. Her mood and withdrawn demeanor all the way to Rome would fit that result. Except, I know she wouldn’t do it without returning my amulet first.

  The Illuminati kidnapped her. They must have. I was warned they’d be watching when I entered Rome. I can easily see them kidnapping Joseara to pick off my support group in rescuing my wife because they have to know I won’t work for them.

  I slept well enough on the stone beneath the pillar in the courtyard, so I stay solidly awake until the last two hours before sunrise and finally sleep again. A knock on the door wakes me up.

  Jaicom mumbles and rolls over. I lay a pillow over his head so whomever I open the door to can’t make a judgement about two men sharing the same bed.

  I open the door to a man with a blue vest tucked into his black pantaloons. “Zadicayn?”

  Every nerve under my skin prickles as he hands me a white envelope.

  He’s the messenger from the Illuminati.

  I seize him by the neck and pull him into the room, shoving his body against the stone wall. “Where is my wife!”

  Jaicom snorts and throws the pillow off him, sitting up. “Zadicayn? What in the bloody hell are you doing?”

  Now the Illuminati messenger will see two men in the same room with one bed. No matter. I’m going to hold him hostage and force him to take me to my wife.

  “This is our messenger.” I squeeze my fingers and the man flails.

  “Let him go. He works here.”

  “A disguise. Where is my wife?”

  The man scrunches his face and releases a sob. “Lasciami andare. Io non volevo offenderti. Sono così dispiaciuto!”

  “Let go of him, Zadicayn.” Jaicom grasps my elbow.

  With great reluctance, I release the man. Both of his hands go to his neck, and he looks from Jaicom to me, and back, deciding to run to the nearest constable and report me, I’m sure.

  “Parli inglese?” Jaicom asks politely.

  “No,” he says.

  The heat of rage thins in my vision, and I see a man who works at the hotel who was asked to deliver a message to Zadicayn. Jaicom slaps coins into the man’s hand, giving him an earnest look. The language barrier prohibits Ja
icom from saying, “Take the money and don’t report us,” but the money and unblinking stare do well on their own.

  The man pockets the money, adjusts e uniform suit I rumpled, and leaves.

  Jaicom shoots me a look.

  “Ye are the one who suggested we capture the messenger and make him talk!”

  “Wrong messenger. We should have known they wouldn’t deal with us directly. They’re prepared for you, know you would use your magic against them, but not against an innocent bystander. They know you play by the rules.”

  “I’m starting to wish I didn’t.” I sit on the chaise longe, hip mashing a portion of Jaicom’s top hat. Clearly, we are both far from caring since I don’t adjust to fix it and Jaicom doesn’t complain. “I’ve never dealt with the likes of these kinds of men afore now.” My eyes fall to the white envelope on the red carpet, like a spot of purity surrounded on all sides by blood. I fight between terror and elation. I don’t get back up to grab it because I’m scared to feel either.

  “You going to open it? It is the reason we traveled over a thousand miles to get here.”

  My body feels like a puppet. I walk back to the envelope and scoop it up. Shaky fingers crack the seal.

  Pantheon, 8 o’clock evening time. 18 March.

  A picture of an owl signs the bottom.

  I slap the letter against Jaicom’s chest and walk to the window, running a sweaty hand through my hair.

  “Wonder why they’re waiting two days if they know you’re here,” Jaicom muses behind me.

  Two days gives me enough time to look for Joseara and get my amulet before the meeting. “If I might guess, ‘tis to elaborate their trap for me.”

  “Why? To torture you until you say, ‘I’ll work for you’?”

  “Mayhaps.” I turn to him. “Fae magic is stable and limitless, whereas Black Magician magic is only as stable as the wiles of their demons. After a while, the Black Magicians tire of cutting off limbs for certain spells.”

  “Would it be so bad to work for them?”

  Aside from my own pride knowing they coerced me to do so? “The Fae govern my magic. I’m to stay close to the Fae Arch in case they call for me. I also need access to the Fae Realm, so I can practice spells.”

  “Could you petition the Fae to build an arch in Rome?”

  “They wouldst never allow one of their wizards to use magic for political or religious gain, which is what the Illuminati want me to do.”

  “Agree with them anyway and then escape. Send a Faewraith on them.”

  “Methinks they’d be ready for that. Who knows how long they’ve been planning this meeting with me?”

  “So what? I know I joked last night about you not being powerful, but I know you are, so just make several plans and use your magic. It is superior. Unless it’s not?”

  I don’t respond because I’m too distracted with Black Magicians and the countless traps they likely have set for me.

  “So, you’re not powerful.”

  “What? No, I am. I’m…thinking.”

  “I’m hungry. Let’s find food, exchange our money into florins, and find a hotel closer to the Pantheon. We have two days to scout it out, don’t we?”

  I look up to Jaicom’s smile and steady purpose. That sounds like a great first plan. Again, I’m glad I brought him along. I’d likely still be floundering in Calais if it wasn’t for him.

  The hotel staff I half-strangled glares at me as we leave the lobby. He didn’t call the constables. He can glare all he wants.

  The Roman day has clearly mimicked my mood–cold, rainy, and the blind man outside our door pleading for mercy.

  After what must have been twenty ‘parli inglese?’ we finally find someone who directs us to the currency exchange house. After Jaicom exits, we huddle in a doorway so I can copy my Fae Coins into florins. I don’t need my amulet to do so since Fae Wood already has spells scripted on the surface which just need to be traced over with a finger to activate.

  “You make me so mad.” Jaicom had punched his top hat back into shape, though a definite crease testifies to the damage. “I’ve earned every pound, whereas you just create it when you feel like it.”

  “Would ye like incarceration for three hundred and twenty-four years and ostracization from society?”

  Jaicom grumbles and turns to look down the street, the light sprinkle of rain pooling on the rim of his hat.

  “Besides, if Henry marries Eudora, she can do it for ye, too.”

  Jaicom fails to comment or to even react that he heard. He stands as still as the five fountain heads we’ve passed, looking across the narrow road to a large poster affixed to the stone wall. I lean to the side to look around him, a sour stomach zapping my mouth dry.

  The large poster blazes in fancy lettering:

  Ball al Pantheon, 18 marzo. Musica, danza, cibo. RSVP con Teatro Capranica. 100 fiorini a persona.

  Beneath the script shows a massive illustration of a dancing couple. The well-dressed man is looking away, but the beautiful, elegantly dressed female, left hand holding his right and held high, faces out. Brown curls add to the sculpted pale shoulders, brown eyes in that acute balance between despair and false joy that no one else but me and Jaicom would ever notice. I tunnel vision on the wedding band on her left hand–a circle of Fae Wood I created for her of a dragon biting its tail.

  “Zadicayn?”

  My entire body turns into a single hot heartbeat, squeezing and expanding, over and over, in sync with my rapidly inhaling lungs.

  “Zadicayn?”

  I’m going to crescendo and explode, or Rome will explode…or the entire earth. If I’d had my amulet, I would lift Rome off its ancient foundation and hurl it into the dirty river, drown it, then burn it, and tear the earth apart and send each piece spinning into the cosmos so far that no God, demon, nor devil could ever find them again.

  “Zadicayn?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  “Are you–”

  “I said give me a minute!” I jam my head into the doorframe, shutting my eyes. An ocean of emotion swells in me, massive, a larger pool than I’ve ever had to deal with before, coming a close second to when I left the undercroft for the first time when I nearly went mad with it. But with these crowded streets, there is nowhere to run to expel it all in privacy. So I don’t move, my head jammed in the door frame so hard I might crush my skull.

  My sanity zaps around my head, trying to evade the grasp of emotional instability hunting it like hounds. My heart quickens, and I’m about to burst…

  A patter on the back of my neck.

  Rain.

  Touch.

  I latch onto that touch, the only thing that throws up a wall between my sanity and madness. This coupled with forced rhythmic breathing helps my sanity bound into safety, the hounds slowing to a halt. They don’t leave. But they prowl at the gate.

  I push away from the door frame, keeping my back deliberately turned to the poster featuring my wife.

  “Zadicayn…I’m so sorry.”

  I catch something in his tone. I look at him, and he deliberately looks away.

  His words aren’t a condolence to my plight. They’re an apology for not believing me about Brynn and Levi’s kidnap when he should have believed me from the start. It’s one matter believing something for the sake of someone else, and a completely different matter engraining that belief into the very fiber of your soul. I never knew before what the difference looked like, but now I see its definition etched into Jaicom’s suddenly aged face as cold and real as the rain we stand under.

  I see him trying to form words to validate his apology, but I lift my hand to show it is not needed. No apologies, threats, promises, luck, well wishes, prayers, or hope are going to free my wife.

  Only me.

  “Let’s go,” I say, though where to, I’ve no idea. All my directions yank on me to walk up to the poster and drag my wife out of it. “You lead.” Wise choice, I decide, to follow Jaicom right now.

&nbs
p; He steps forward with full purpose as if energized by the atrocity hanging on the wall of the building. An idea sparks in me, and I race back to the poster, scouring the entire thing for the signature of the illustrator of my wife. I find it, but it’s an incomprehensible scrawl.

  There’s a chance. There’s a chance I can find Brynn if I can find her painter. But if I can’t find her in two days, then I will need my amulet. I might need my amulet anyway. I need to concentrate on finding my amulet.

  “Jaicom, I’m going back to the gate we came in through yesterday, to look for Joseara.”

  “Let’s get a hotel first so we can find each other again. But even before that, I’m getting something to eat. Blimey, now I sound like Varlith.”

  * * *

  We stop at the first place we recognize as an establishment selling food: a stone building squeezed between two others. Like every building in Rome. We sit down and, without knowing the language, we play a sort of Russian food roulette where we point at something random on the menu and wait in anticipation for what will be brought for us. I got a flat round pie with a red sauce, vegetables, and what looked suspiciously like squid. Jaicom got a bowl of sauced noodles.

  It was easy enough finding the Pantheon, directed there by signs of “Al Pantheon” all over Rome. I’m eager to scope it out right now, but Jaicom insists we get a hotel first. We grab one close by, called Hotel Pantheon. Jaicom still upsets about the twenty florins a night per person.

  I dump my bag in the room and spin around to leave. I don’t bother asking Jaicom to come with me. He’d only slow me down with his limp, but he doesn’t attempt to follow. Likely because of his limp.

  Oppressive gray spreads across Rome and the constant drizzle runs down the back of my neck and pools in streamlets between the cobblestone. I don’t feel cold. Or wet. Only an intense holy rage to find my wife. I war between looking for her and my amulet.

  My amulet is filled with a mixture of my blood and Fae blood, which creates a sort of magnetic pull. I’ve found my amulet once before with this method when I first left the undercroft. I just have to nick my arm to make it bleed a little and see what direction the bloodlet jumps. But at that time, I was unobstructed by buildings. A problem now, yes, but I’ve got nothing to lose with attempting. Just have to wait for it to stop raining. In the meantime, I head back to the gate we entered Rome by. That’s the last place I saw Joseara.