Black Light (23 page)

But yet there were places on the earth where the Benandanti did not hold sway. And it was to one of these that Balthazar Warnick had come after witnessing the destruction of the herm—

Bolerium. He went unwilling, but unable to resist the summons.

For summons it had been, just as Ralph Casson had said. No vision of Giulietta Masparutto could have gone unanswered, no thought of her brushed away; no matter that it scorched him, left him breathless and burning as though he had stuck his hand into a bonfire. Balthazar could no more ignore the memory of that voice and its whispering echo through the eons, than he could have torn his soul and mind from the battle he had entered into when the hills around him were covered with trees, and the standing stones stained red with wine and blood.

So he had entered Bolerium; uninvited, unseen. It was a sacred place, as sacred to the Malandanti as the Divine was to the Good Walkers. For two thousand years Bolerium had been one of their last refuges, and no one of the Benandanti’s portals would vouchsafe entry there. Instead Balthazar had made his journey from the Orphic Lodge and entered Affon, and from thence had used one of the ancient propylons that served as stepping-stones between past and future, joining the holy places of Benandanti and Malandanti alike.

Because Heraclitus was wrong. You
could
step into the same river twice. Time itself was that river, the Benandanti and Malandanti its navigators; their respective gods the stars they steered by. But in going to Bolerium, Balthazar had made his way through treacherous shoals, and risked more than he cared to think about.

Now he could see the propylon that had served as his way station: a granite pillar twice man-high, plain and unadorned where it sat upon the very top of the hill. At its base thistles nodded in the wind, and bright yellow finches worried their seeds with plaintive voices. Balthazar gave a sigh of relief. He stepped toward the propylon, and immediately went crashing to the ground.

“No—you—
don’t
—” a voice gasped behind him. Someone grappled with his legs; Balthazar kicked out awkwardly and pulled away. He sat up, panting, and saw Ralph Casson sprawled in the high grass. Around his right eye a series of fine crimson lines radiated, as though it were a medieval image of the sun. Drawn in the air behind him was the blurred outline of a door, and within that faint rectangle Balthazar could just make out the corridor he had fled, vying with the misty stretch of sky above the sea.

“Tag,” Ralph said, and grinned. “You’re it.”

Balthazar stumbled to his feet. “You can do nothing here!”

“Nor can you,” retorted Ralph. He stood and brushed grass from his suit jacket, its vivid ultramarine muted in the brilliant light. He looked around, blinking. For an instant sheer wonder washed across his face, and Balthazar could see a ripple of the boy in the ruins of the man he had become. The ardent undergraduate too easily moved to tears; the older student infuriated by the revelations of Procopius, himself a loyal Benandante, and that vengeful courtier’s venomous attacks upon the imperial consort Theodora; the longhaired young man with head bent over Girardius’s account of the Necromantic Bell in one of the secret libraries at the Divine, his lips moving as he first uttered the words of the incantation that would make final his betrayal, and his expulsion.

But then Ralph turned to face his former mentor. Amazement faded into mistrust and restrained fury as he gingerly touched the web of broken skin around his eye. “You should not have done that, Balthazar,” he said softly. “I came to you in good faith, to bring you news of your lover—”

Balthazar broke in angrily. “You manifested a sending at the Lodge—”

“I did not. That was no vision, Balthazar—the god walks, the cycle begins. He drinks and fucks and readies himself for his rebirth, even as we speak. This is what your carelessness has cost the Benandanti, Professor. You should have been more vigilant. The times were propitious for his return, the world is ready—as ready as it gets, these days,” he added with a shrug. “Time to face the music, Balthazar! Your reign is almost over. And that”— He swept his hand out, indicating the ghostly door in the air behind them. —“
that
is where it will all end: in Bolerium.”

“In delirium, more likely,” said Balthazar. He had calmed himself enough that his voice was steady, though he kept his hands in his pockets so Ralph would not see how they still trembled. “He’s not a very
reliable
god, is he, Ralph? And Axel Kern is rather a poor choice of avatar—he’s too well-known! Who would dare kill him? The cycle will never be completed,” he ended, and allowed himself a smile.

“You’re wrong, Professor Warnick. His followers—”

“Lackeys,”
said Balthazar derisively. “Drug addicts, prostitutes, inverts—none of them could do it. They wouldn’t dare—that would be like tearing up their meal ticket, wouldn’t it? And I imagine most of them possess a minute degree of feeling, or common sense, certainly enough to keep them from
murdering
him. Not to mention the complicated legal situation that would devolve—some deranged hophead slaying a famous film director in the name of an ancient religious rite!”

Balthazar laughed. “No, I just can’t see it, Ralph. Who would do it? Willingly, mindfully, in accordance with the mysteries? No one—”

“The girl would.” Ralph’s face had turned crimson; the outlines of the wound Balthazar had given him bled into his rage. “The girl you remember as Giulietta: Charlotte Moylan. Lit.”

Balthazar froze. “You’re lying,” he whispered. Though he knew, had always somehow known, it was the truth.

“No, Balthazar. I’m not lying. She was chosen years ago. She’s his goddaughter, she grew up within the enclave—”

“Does she know?” Balthazar’s voice cracked. “Does she—”

“She knows nothing,” said Ralph. Relieved, Balthazar closed his eyes for an instant, opened them to see the other man staring at him. “
Yet.
In Kamensic they all grow up under the Malandanti’s protection, but the children never know, not at first…

“But she will learn, Balthazar. She is with him at this very moment. And you know what happens next—”

“I forbid it.”

Ralph burst out laughing. “
Forbid
it? Don’t be an idiot! You’re not her father—you’re not even her lover, now. No, there’s nothing you can do, Balthazar, except maybe watch the proceedings…”

His laughter trailed off into the sound of waves and birds wheeling overhead. He threw his head back, staring into the sky as Balthazar watched him measuringly. For several minutes neither man spoke. Then,

“I will go to her,” Balthazar said. Absently he plucked a yellow gorse blossom, rubbing its petals between his fingers. “She’ll listen, she’ll remember—”

“She will be afraid of you.” Menace undercut Ralph’s tone as he tore his gaze from the sky. “There
was
a sending, but it wasn’t of the fallen herm. I showed her you, Balthazar. In various fancy dress, and doing an estimable job of presiding over various rites—”

“She’ll know it was false!”

“But it
wasn’t
all false, Balthazar. I showed her Corey at Herculaneum—hard to forget such a thing if you see it at an impressionable age, isn’t it? And as for the rest, why would she doubt it?” Ralph shot the other man a look composed equally of pity and disdain. “She’s just a girl, Balthazar. She has no knowledge, no memory of you or your history. Her parents serve the god but they aren’t adepts—they’re
actors.
Mediocre actors,” he added with a trace of viciousness. “Ignorant. That is what the great Dionysos is reduced to now—whores and speed freaks.”

“Then why do you serve him, Ralph?” For the first time Balthazar’s tone was genuinely curious.

“I serve nobody. I told you that ten years ago—”

“Then you’re a fool. We all serve something. I do so with full knowledge—”

“You do so as a thief,” Ralph said. “You and all your kind. The Good Walkers—nothing but poachers and thieves. And murderers.” He extended his finger and drew a figure in the air. Faint gold letters appeared, almost immediately faded.

“‘God is the author of all good things,’” Ralph recited, lifting his eyes as though reading the words in the sky above him. “‘To continue the good customs which have been practiced by idolaters, to preserve the objects and the buildings which they have used is not to borrow from them; on the contrary, it is taking from them what is not theirs and giving it to God, its real owner.’ Saint Augustine,” he ended. “See, Professor? I really was paying attention in class, all those years ago.”

Balthazar shook his head. “If you think you act freely, he has deceived you, Ralph. ‘The god of illusion’—”

“Oh, no. ‘
The god of ecstasy,
’” Ralph drawled. “Tell me something, Professor: why does the Devil have all the good music? At least
I
have sense to know which way the wind blows, right? Oh, she’ll go to him
very
willingly, and the rest—the rest will follow. Twenty-four hours from now the cycle will already have begun again. The Malandanti will be that much stronger. Unless…”

He lifted his hands and waggled them suggestively. The gorse petals dropped from the blossom that Balthazar held, and the older man tossed the spent flower into the wind.

“Unless what?” he asked wearily.

“Unless the Benandanti initiate me into the Conclave.”

Balthazar snorted. “That’s impossible! You betrayed us, Ralph—”

“No. I refused to murder Corey,” Ralph replied. “I refused to kill my best friend, when it turned out he wasn’t going to be as useful to you as you first thought. I refused to be your straw man—”

“You obstinately refused to obey my command: you invoked Erichto, you stole entry to our portals, and you paid the price. And Corey died all the same,” Balthazar added regretfully. “And for what? For nothing, Ralph. We will
always
triumph. Why didn’t you listen to me? How could you have imagined you would get away with it?”

“I
did
get away with it. I’m here now, right?” Abruptly Ralph turned and began striding toward the hilltop. Balthazar watched him, his mouth tight; then quickly followed. Around them tiny blue butterflies dipped in and out of the gorse. The sun burned down, strong enough that the bracken crackled dry as autumn leaves beneath their feet. On the westernmost edge of the sea a fog bank was beginning to take shape, like a wall between land’s end and the world beyond.

They climbed in silence, their suit jackets flapping in the wind. When he reached the summit, Ralph halted and turned, waiting for Balthazar to catch up.

“So you won’t petition the Conclave on my behalf.”

“There would be no point.” Balthazar stooped and picked up a stone. He drew his hand back and threw it, a black jot like a bird arcing higher and higher, until it disappeared. “None.”

Ralph wiped sweat from his cheek, wincing as his hand grazed the scar around his eye. “Well. I didn’t think you would, actually. But I thought I would at least show you common decency, and give you the chance. You’ve really fucked yourself, Professor—you know that, don’t you?”

When Balthazar said nothing the other man went on. “She’ll go with the god. When she kills him it will start all over: Finnegan, begin again!
You
will have the pleasure of seeing your eternal love betray everything you’ve lived for…And
I
will have the pleasure of watching the Conclave find out about your negligence. By then it will be too late: the first gods will return, and the Benandanti will be defeated.”

Balthazar looked at him with contempt. “You always were a rebel without a clue. Wasting your life, thinking that Dionysos or Erichto or Spes will prove kinder masters than the ones you had at the Divine! Would you spend your years rooting in the dirt with them? You could have worked with the Benandanti, you could have served us—”

“As a goddam foot soldier. Forget it, Professor. It’s over.”

Ralph turned and walked to where the granite pillar loomed against the gathering mist. A few feet away, tucked amidst the thistles and the gorse’s reddish thorns, grew a small laurel bush. Its leaves were jade-green, smooth as marble. Ralph stood eyeing it contemplatively. Then he stooped and took one of its gnarled branches in his hand, twisting it until it pulled loose.

Balthazar watched in silence as Ralph crushed one of the laurel leaves between his fingers, sniffed it and then put it into his mouth. He chewed, grimacing; then spat into his hand. He took the branch and began to rub it between his palms, faster and faster, the leaves switching back and forth in a green blur.

Daphnomancy,
thought Balthazar.

“That’s right,” said Ralph.

“Parlor tricks,” Balthazar retorted, but Ralph only stared at the branch whirling between his hands. The solar scar upon his cheek began to glow. As though catching a spark from it the laurel burst into flame. There was a harsh scent, black wisps of ash, and the crackle of burning leaves. Ralph continued to hold the branch, turning it this way and that so the wind fanned the little blaze.

“There,” he said, pleased. “Have a look, Balthazar.”

Within the flame were two tiny figures, a girl whose fiery hair trailed into the edges of the blaze and a robed man with saturnine features. The man was speaking, his voice thin as the wailing of the birds overhead.

“…the amazing thing about Fellini, he’s always doing the same thing, it’s always the same thing…”

The girl said nothing, only rubbed her arms as though she was cold. Watching her Balthazar felt tears score his eyes. He swallowed, his mouth dry and throat aching, and turned to Ralph.

“Free her.”

Ralph shrugged. He dropped the branch into a patch of gorse. Yellow flames devoured the girl’s image. With a soft hiss the fire went out. A coil of smoke rose into the air and joined the mist that had begun to cloak the hilltop.

“I’m not holding her, Balthazar.” Ralph sighed and ran a hand across his face. He suddenly looked very tired. “She’s a part of it, that’s all. There, in Kamensic—I have no more power over her than you do…

“What was it you always used to say, Professor? That we all have our parts, that they never change and we only fuck ourselves if we try to change them—”