The Illusions In Between

by J M Robison

  “I can’t believe I haven’t seen Zadicayn.” Joseara pulls her hood and mask off and scrubs her face. Discolored hair grows in awkward patches on her blistered scalp. It’s remarkable that her eyes were protected from what ruined everything else. She must have covered them with her hands.

  “There’s a lot of people. He could be easy to miss.”

  “I know him well enough I’d spot him.” Genuine concern pulls her eyebrows together. “This is important, Darik. My heart is sick with what reality I’ll be left with later tonight. I promise if Zadicayn doesn’t have his amulet back…it’s safe to say he’s dead.”

  “Then we will keep vigil on every head below us.” I lie on my stomach next to her and get comfortable.

  The sun moves onward, throwing shadows first one way then the next. It’s lunch time, so I leave the roof again in search of food, taking care to look at every face. It would be easy enough spotting an English man in a throng of Italians.

  The weather looked promising after it broke yesterday, but some farmer must be heavy in his prayers for rain because the clouds thread back together with a threat of something to come.

  I bring Joseara a wedge of cheese and a tomato. She accepts both graciously, and we continue our vigil. Those setting up the decorations and tables below in the piazza look at the sky with worry. I wish it would rain on them so those not waiting to rescue their wives would scurry away until it stopped. I feel a few drops, but that’s it. The air thickens with humidity.

  The six o’clock evening bell tolls, and I see Joseara chewing madly on her bottom lip. “Something’s wrong.”

  I share her anxiety.

  “The owner of the gallery below us will be closing soon,” I say. “I’ll grab us dinner before he locks the door.” I stand and rush down the stairs without giving her time to respond.

  The uncertain weather has most cart venders closing up to roll home. I manage a fat yellow squash, but that’s it. Joseara still doesn’t question it, only asks how it is to be eaten.

  Seven bells toll.

  “Did I hear wrong? Was it not at the Pantheon?”

  I stretch my arm down to the carriages starting to arrive and park, fancy dresses and suits exiting. They each march toward the Pantheon and go inside. “Do you have reason to doubt?”

  “I can’t accept that Zadicayn wouldn’t show up early to get a better handle on the situation.”

  “You have his amulet. He may be out of options.”

  She touches her chest. “And I know exactly one spell. Relocation. Or, at least the simplest form of it.” She looks at the empty gourd husk, which levitates off the roof above our heads and settles down again.

  “That is so…” There isn’t a word for it.

  “I’d even dare to walk into the Pantheon and relocate Brynn out of it. The Illuminati wouldn’t be expecting it.”

  “Invitation only.” I direct her attention to the two men standing on either side of the portico, accepting something from each of the finely dressed people who waltz up the stairs. The majority of the guests gather in the piazza, clustered around the fountain with drinks in their hands.

  She opens her mouth but closes it again. I see the same impossibility she does. I’ve been victim to her relocation magic, and though my imagination is limited, I can see the impossibility of relocating every person who gets in her way, not to mention those men who would catch onto her before she caught onto them.

  “What’s a curse word in Italian?”

  “Merda.”

  “Merda!” she exhumes without rolling the “r.” “What am I going to do if Zadicayn doesn’t show up?”

  Her pretty eyes plead with me to be her hero again. Oh, Sant’Ivo, how I want to be. Cue shirtless Darik Vandazmer.

  “Whatever we do, we will be glorious.”

  I get a smile out of her. Any ugly face can be made pretty with a smile. “And so we shall.”

  We stare silently into the crowd below us. Middle and lower-class dressed folk hover at the edges, clustering, jeering at the party-goers. Polizia swing clubs at them, and they run off. Food is brought out to the tables from a local building, catered by whatever restaurant wanted the accolades from the highest of society. Joseara crumples and uncrumples her mask in her fist. The clouded sun in the darkening evening makes it harder and harder to see faces below.

  Something grabs my legs and yanks me backward. I startle and twist around, but a meaty fist slams into my nose and I lose all sense of coherency in a haze of pain. My head spins with vertigo, the sky rocking like the ship which bore me to Italy and this vagrant life of mine. Dimly, I hear Joseara scream, though it fades as if she’s getting farther away quickly.

  “Leave her—” But that earns me a swift kick to my ribs.

  My heart thrashes in my chest. My hands and arms go up and out in all directions, as many fingers latch onto any portion of my body available to them. Someone yanks a burlap bag over my head. My wrists are forced behind my back, and my face pressed into the roof, crunching the bones in my broken nose. Blood seeps through the bag with my scream.

  Scratchy cord cinches around my wrists without care. I lose all sensation to my fingers. Too many hands to count lift my body up, and I’m carried. In my panic, I feel they’re going to throw me off the roof like what I think they did to Joseara, but then I sense darkness and the steady sway of the hands carrying me down stairs. The Camorra must have seen me come in through the gallery when I came back after collecting dinner. The owner should have locked up before now. Breaking in would be too obvious with polizia roving around the piazza in the front.

  We stop descending. We must be on the bottom floor.

  “…not here for you. There is no need to cause a fuss or alarm,” I hear as we come closer to the door. Must be talking to the building owner. “We just wanted him. Close up after we leave. You will never see us again.”

  “Muffle his face so he won’t scream when we step outside,” Sigismondo says.

  I inhale to do just that, but I’m readjusted, so my face is crammed up against someone’s body, with two arms wrapped around my head, bursting pain behind my eyes from my crushed nose. I breathe out my mouth, but I’m not allowed any air to scream so I’m sucking breath through thick fabrics and blood. I might as well die right now because I’m going to be dead in the next ten minutes.

  I hope to hear the reassuring whistles of the polizia to “Halt!” But I don’t. Whether the polizia even see, I’m carried further away from the music shrilling out of the piazza.

  My head is released. I breathe. My resistance melts into sobs. I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m sadistically reassured by this because I knew I’d die young by the hands of the Camorra. I expected it. What I can’t decide is whether to die fighting, pleading, or accepting my doom.

  I cry instead.

  “Shut up, Darik. Thought you were more battle-hardened than this.”

  “You didn’t have to kill her,” I say with a mouthful of blood, breathing in cadence with every wave of pain.

  “She’s a witch. Didn’t want her jinxing us.”

  They likely made that connection when Cesare reported the Faewraith which appeared after Cesare had touched her–Zadicayn’s–amulet.

  I don’t know where they’re taking me. It must be somewhere specific to slit my throat. Otherwise they would have done it on the roof of the gallery.

  I hear a whisper of leaves and vegetation, and I smell dank water with city refuse. The Tiber River doesn’t flow fast enough to flush out the muddy bottom. No one will see me when I sink under.

  I’m laid on the ground. They’re going to cut my throat and throw me in the water. I kick and thrash, but what feels like Cesare’s heavy body sprawls across my legs. Someone handles my ankles, but I can’t tell what they’re doing.

  “Boys, if you’re going to say your farewells to this bastard, now’s the time,” Sigismondo drawls.

  I hear at least five distinct hacks and spitting. One of them targets my hands.
Warm goo fills between my fingers.

  A boot crunches grass next to my head. A shuffle of clothes brings Sigismond’s voice nearly level with my head. “I don’t know what saint you sold your soul to in exchange for your life after Luigi poisoned you, but I’m curious whether he will rescue you from drowning.” He stands. “Throw him in.”

  I’m lifted up, and a heavy weight drags off my ankles. My feet hit the water with a powerful jolt as my body falls victim to the dropping weight. I fill my lungs with air as if extending my life by thirty seconds is going to make a difference.

  The weight drags me down, dirty river gushing over my head. The weight hits bottom. I tuck my knees in to pull myself down to my ankles. I arch my back, but can’t get a grip on the rope around my boots with both hands bound behind me. Somewhere during my capture, they slipped my stiletto out of my sleeve. I roll my palms together. The rope won’t give. My lungs scream to take a poisoned breath of the Tiber. I fly a prayer to Saint Ivo.

  And suck in a lung full of water.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Joseara

  My feet flip over my head. I’m close enough to the edge that my body follows the motion, and I fall off the roof. I throw my glance to the ground and relocate just before I break my body against it, but my head is closer to it than my feet, and a crunch resounds in my ears as I smack my head on the cobble. A black haze crawls across my vision, and I can’t feel my arms or legs.

  I hear Italian words. Hands gently shake me. It feels only minutes passed, but it could have been longer before I blink enough times to clear the blur from my eyes. A mass of bodies exits the door I’d fallen in front of. Another body is held horizontal to the ground within their grasp, but I can’t make sense of what that means.

  “Stai bene?” A concerned hand brushes my cheek. I don’t have my mask. I’d taken it off.

  I check my strength and lift my upper body. My arms shake but coherency is returning. A headache throbs. A man reaches down to help me stand. I let him. I wobble and hold onto his arm so I can realign my balance.

  “È un miracolo!” someone shouts.

  “Avete bisogno di un dottore?” calls another.

  I don’t understand what they are saying. Probably shocked that I lived after my fall. I thought I heard the word miracle.

  I let go of the man’s arm and walk to the building, leaning against it, waving at people to leave me alone, which they do reluctantly. Seeing as I’m standing, it doesn’t take long for the swelling party to sweep them back into drink, food, and dancing.

  I look at the mass of bodies who exited the building, turn left down a road. A body with a bagged head struggles between them. I look at the roof I fell from, that someone threw me from. What happened to Darik?

  My heart rate increases, pumping more blood to my brain, so I’m earned a little more clarity.

  Darik.

  Zadicayn.

  I flip my head around to look at the Pantheon, gaining a sharp stab to my skull from the motion. It must be nearing eight. I look to where the mass of bodies disappeared, and back at the roof. I have to believe Darik would have come down to check on me had he been able to. He said the Italian gang had tried to kill him once. Was it them?

  Either way, I don’t believe Darik is on the roof, nor is he lying dead next to me. I look at the Pantheon. Zadicayn, wait for me. I keep a hand pressed against the wall, walking forward as quickly as my wobbly stance and shaken vertigo allow.

  I reach the corner and look left. They’ve crossed the intersection at the end but continued forward. I open my mouth to speak the relocation spell, but my tongue is slow, and the spell does not respond. I must have a concussion. The Fae will only respond to the spell if they understand it, Zadicayn said. I hobble forward, focusing on my lips and tongue which won’t line up and form the words I want. I’ve hurt my head badly. My vision dances, and it’s hard to focus.

  The group turns right at the next intersection. My head throbs. I trundle after and reach the next intersection a full minute after them and look right. I don’t see them. I panic. I take my hand off the building and trust my balance. I have to trust my balance. I attempt to run forward, but it’s nowhere near what I want or am capable of. My body’s still in shock and won’t let go of me completely. I try the spell again. My tongue works better but still not clear enough. I keep trying.

  I’m on a major road–it’s wider than most. It makes a left only turn. I follow it, trotting forward. At the end, it branches diagonally right and left, but I don’t see the group. Darik may not be the struggling body in that group. He could be dead on the roof, and here I’m chasing his ghost while Zadicayn is probably at the Pantheon by now.

  But if Darik is in this group, I have to keep trying. I know Zadicayn would do the same if it were Brynn, the rest of the world be damned for just a moment.

  I pass a street on my right. I give it a cursory glance and continue forward. If I don’t see the group at this intersection, I have to go back, though it hurts my heart to do so. The one nice thing in my life and it’s taken from me.

  I reach the intersection. Gloom spreads with the evening and the thickening rain clouds, but I still see the group far down on the road right of the intersection. I will myself to sprint, but my rattled brain won’t release its survival mode. I keep my eyes fixed on the group as they make a sharp left just before the bridge at the end.

  I keep trying the spell, over and over, creeping slowly toward the bridge. Finally, my tongue and lips loosen, and a pop heralds my arrival at the bridge, a mere twenty steps instantly forward. It’s progress, but I don’t see the group. Trees hedge the road on both sides.

  I take two seconds struggling between chasing what might be Darik and going back. The eight o’clock bell hasn’t donged yet. I still have time. Time to head back and–

  Splash.

  I register the sound, and process if it has any meaning to me.

  “Può Dio manda il tuo bastardo anima all'inferno!” jeers a voice in the trees to my right…many voices.

  I scurry to the trees and peer through. Five men stand with their backs to me, hollering in Italian at the river.

  “Pregare più forte, Darik, vostro Santo non può sentirti!”

  They said Darik’s name, rolling the r like when Darik first introduced himself.

  Rage and terror power my limbs forward.

  I run straight into the man closest to me. All my body weight causes him to propel forward, with a shout, into the river.

  They all turn and look at me, more curious than upset about their companion sputtering in the dirty water.

  One of the men leaps behind his companion like a shield, pointing at me from behind him. “Ecco la strega!”

  The cowering man turns around and runs away, while the remaining three draw the needle-like knives Darik called a stiletto out of their sleeves, and snarl. I magically relocate the man closest to me into the man crawling out of the water. They crash in a tumble of arms, legs, and shouts, and go under with a spray of brown water. The two remaining rush me. Living in the Fae Realm where nothing can kill me, I panic. My head is still too addled to run fast. I sputter the first illusion spell that comes to mind; Zadicayn said they’re just colored air, and therefore harmless as long as you include the Fae word for “illusion” in the spell, which I do.

  The result is a monstrous black blob of muscle, massive fangs, and eyes bigger than the clock face on the tower in Valemorren. It stands on two hooved feet, but long arms end in spiked knuckles that rest on the ground in front of it. It’s called a Bantamanam. I don’t know from what world it originally belonged, but the Fae sucked it into the Fae Realm for its protection, as apparently, extinction threatened them. They’re big, ugly, and scary, but gentler than a goldfish.

  The gang men don’t know it’s an illusion, and they shriek and trip over themselves to get away from it. The two men in the water–halfway out–push away from the side and swim frantically away, across the river, causing more splashes than
gaining more speed.

  I stand on the bank and look all over the water. The river slides by lazily. Darik must be in there; I heard the splash. I hold my breath and jump in. Eyes shut tight against the dirt and grime filling my boots and clothes, I swing my arms frantically around me. I strike something in the water and grab it with both hands.

  A body.

  He’s floating upright, head mere inches from the surface. Feet must be tied down.

  He’s motionless.

  I grab his pant legs to climb down, and I feel ropes around his ankles. I pull out my knife and saw at the rope stretched tight below his feet. It comes free. I kick up from the bottom, Darik scooped into my arms. I break the surface, take a breath, and I’m dragged down again by his weight. I swim to the bottom with him and kick off again at an angle toward the shore. My head breaks the surface, and I breathe. Leaning back with Darik to my chest, I kick with both feet, pulling him with my free arm until I grab the stone-lined edge of the shore.

  He’s got a burlap bag on his head. Hands tied behind his back. Still not moving.

  “Darik!” Though it costs me a great deal of air to say it. I drag myself out of the water, then hook both hands beneath his arms and heave.

  A hundred and seventy or so pounds, the water drags on him. He’s not been under long, but if I can’t get the water out of his lungs and kick-start his heart, he will die for sure. I look behind me at a spot of grass and speak the relocation spell.

  Weight vanishes from my clutch as Darik reappears on the grass, on his back. I land on top of him, hoping to shock the water out of his lungs. The bag on his head prevents me from seeing anything, but I hear a hopeful squelch from beneath it. I rise up and drive my shoulder into his chest again. The squelch turns into a gurgle, then a sputter, then a violent cough.