Prospero in Hell (11 page)

His voice floated back to me. “Oh
ja!
What a treasure trove! This sword is fascinating! It is supported by rainbows!”

“That would be
Kusanagi,
” I called back. “Do hurry, Caurus, we still have a while to go. There can be time shifts once we go through the Fey Threshold. I want to be back in time to meet Mab when he returns.”

When he did not answer immediately, I went back to find him in the Weapons Chamber, surrounded on three sides by swords and other arcane weapons, each in its own glass case. He stood before a case containing an elegant katana wrapped in silk. Where a slim portion of the shining blade was visible near the hilt, a tiny rainbow arced beneath it. Caurus gazed at it in rapt adoration.

“It is beautiful! I love rainbows. What did you call it?”

“
Kusanagi, the Grasscutter.
It is one of the three hereditary treasures of Japan, given to the Japanese people by Amaterasu, their sun goddess and the ancestress of their emperors.”

“Ja!”
He stroked his pointed chin. “If it is so important to them, why is it here?”

“During the battle of Dannouru in 1185, the losers threw it into the sea rather than surrender it to the winners. Father had Mephisto’s mermaid fish it out.”

“You should rename it the
Bifrost Blade
. That would be more fitting for such a fine sword! And this one? Ugh!” Caurus had turned to peer into a smaller glass box containing a knife. A drain leading from the box to the floor below carried away the blood that oozed constantly from the corroded blade.

“That’s the knife that stabbed Julius Caesar.” I stepped up beside Caurus to see it more closely and then winced and drew back. The blade was unpleasant to the eye and exuded a menacing air.

Caurus halted before his hands touched the next case. A biting cold radiated from it, and its glass was misty with frost.

“This one is cold!”

“Laevateinn.”
I spoke the name with a certain amount of reverence. I had seen what it could do.

“The Wounding Wand! Here?” Caurus whistled and swore in some language I did not know. “This is the sword the god Loki forged upon the gates of Niflheim? How did you come to own it?”

“In some tales, it is
Laevateinn
rather than
Twilight
that Surtur wields at Ragnarok. Father thought it best to take it out of circulation, just in case.” I paused, shivered, and added, my voice low, “Erasmus used to fight with it.”

Caurus goggled, amazed. “How could he, a mortal, pick it up without perishing?”

“With his Urim gauntlet.”

“Oh.
Ja
.” Turning, his gaze fell on a tall spear with runes carved in its battered shaft. “By Thor! It’s
Gungnir!
”

“Shouldn’t you say, ‘By Odin, it’s
Gungnir,
’ ” I teased, but Caurus was too awestruck to notice. Reaching out tentatively, he touched the tip of a single finger to the rune-carved shaft and quickly yanked it away again.

“This is a mighty spear,” he cried. “It cannot miss its mark, so long as the wielder names his target!”

My smile faltered, and I examined the spear more closely. “We didn’t have
Gungnir
last time I was here. Where did it come from?”

I looked around the armory and saw many pieces I did not recognize. Some of them I knew from legend, such as
Gungnir
and the sword
Durandel,
but they had not been here last time I visited, back in the mid 1960s. Where had they come from? With Gregor dead, Theo retired, Mephisto mad, Cornelius blinded, and Titus seldom traveling, who was bringing Father new talismans?

I began prowling around the other chambers of the Vault. The second arm, the one that was currently dark, was known as the Elemental Chamber. Within it, barely visible in the dim light from the central rotunda, stood four pedestals. Three of them had large copper pots topped with lead that bore the mark of the Seal of Solomon. The fourth had been empty as long as I could remember. Each pedestal was surrounded by pentagrams and other arcane symbols of protection. Along the wall, a shelf held vials, rings, and lamps containing djinn, efretes, and genies bound either by Solomon or by my brother, Gregor. I peeked around a bit, but saw nothing that was obviously new.

Caurus, who had followed me in, saw the copper pots and took a careful step backward.

“The Kings of the Elements,” he whispered softly, his eyes widening almost comically. “The kings trapped by Solomon!”

“Only three of them: Iblis, King of Flame; Makosh, Queen of the Earth; and Triton, King of Water.”

“Where is our liege?”

The fourth king should have been Ophion, called the consort of Eurynome, though in truth, he was more like Her bodyguard.

“He should rest here.” I gestured with my flute toward the empty pedestal. “But I don’t know where Father actually put him. I’ve never even seen his jar. Perhaps Father fears that I might feel obliged to free him, out of loyalty to my Lady, and therefore hid him from me. I don’t know.”

We left the Elemental Chamber and continued clockwise. The Treasure Chamber contained a plethora of new pieces. In addition to objects I knew well—the mermaid’s cap, the tarnhelm, a series of clay jars holding the innards of the great pharaoh Ozymandius, the Brisingamen necklace, and the Cauldron of Rebirth—there were a number I did not, including a mottled rock on a velvet pillow, a huge horn carved with Viking runes, a gleaming golden ring with a plaque that read,
RHINE GOLD
—that was what became of the dwarf king Alberich’s treasure! I felt a moment of pity for his brother Mime, who had spent the last several decades clapped in irons for the alleged theft of it—a crown that shone with a pale, starry light, and a full-sized donkey of gold standing upon a golden circle of floor surrounded by an oval trench filled with a black liquid. Pinned to the side of the donkey was a sheet of gold with a message carved into it that read,
DO NOT TOUCH!!!

Joining me, Caurus moved around the room, poking at things and sniffing them. He moved gingerly around the donkey, careful not to touch it, but he sniffed all of Ozymandius’s organ jars and would have stuck his head in the Cauldron of Rebirth had I not shouted a warning. As I knelt to retrieve the key to the Fairyland door from its secret location, he squatted before a clay amphora painted with Orpheus and his lyre on one side and Hercules in his lion skin on the other. Beside it rested a ladle made of a horse’s hoof and a narrow trough lined with overlapping scales of horse hoof.

“What is in here? Smells…” He leapt back, rubbing his nose. “Frightening!”

“Water from the Styx,” I replied, chuckling. “Legend says it was brought back by Orpheus, though it was most likely Hercules who fetched it. Apparently, that jug has belonged to the
Orbis Suleimani
for a long time. It’s nearly empty now. Shame there’s no way to replace it. Styx water is so useful.”

“What is it used for?” asked Caurus, still rubbing his long nose, which I suspected was mildly numb.

“Swearing oaths and making things invulnerable. That trough to the right? Logistilla ladles a bit of the Styx water into it. Then, she runs a thread through those notches at either end. That’s how she made our invulnerable garments.” I brushed my fingers across the satiny cloth of my emerald tea dress.

“Ah! Like Achilles.” Caurus nodded. “He gained his invulnerability when his mother dipped him in the Styx. Only she forgot his ankle, poor tyke.”

Chuckling, I pointed at the black moat around the golden donkey. “It also makes a superior ward. Neither the living nor the dead can cross it, just like the River Styx. Come on.” I stood. “I want to glance in the last wing before we go.”

The fourth wing, the Holy Chamber, was much as I recalled it. The breastplate of Moses’s brother Aaron, with its decorations of shining Urim, hung on the wall. Beside it stood an entire suit of Urim, a glimmering metallic substance of gleaming silver-white. This armor, which once adorned a warrior angel, was missing the helmet, the breastplate, and the right gauntlet. The pressure of our footsteps upon the floor disturbed its stand, jiggling the Urim plates and causing them to ring like chimes.

On a table in the middle of the room rested a cart wheel made by the carpenter Joshua Ben Joseph, a tent made by the tentmaker Saul of Tarsus, and a net once used by Simon Bar-Jonah and his fellow fishers. The tent made by Saint Paul and the net that had once belonged to Saint Peter were ancient and delicate. Only the best efforts of science and magic had preserved them through the long years. The cart wheel made by Our Lord, however, was as sturdy and fresh as if the Savior had just finished planing it yesterday. It even smelled newly carved. There was something inspiring about its well-crafted simplicity. I always found it pleasant to gaze at it.

The last item on the table was a stand designed to hold the original Scepter of the Pope, made from a piece of the True Cross. The stand was there, but as I admired it I saw to my great dismay that the scepter was missing!

“Milady!” Caurus, who had bent down to examine the shimmering Urim greaves, leapt to his feet. “In the dark room! Something moves!”

I spun around. Within the darkened Elemental Chamber, I caught a glimpse of crimson eyes and a tiered opera cloak. Seir!

“You!” I cried. “What have you done with the Scepter of the Pope with its piece of the True Cross?”

Seir of the Shadows let out a peal of laughter. “Sweet Darling, I could no more carry away a scepter containing a piece of the True Cross than you could eat the sun! I know not whither it went.”

The demon stepped forward from the shadows, revealing his inhumanly handsome features. His sharp horns now gleamed in the phoenix light. In his hand, he held a black staff cut with red runes, from which puffs of darkness billowed. I caught a whiff of brimstone.

“Grave robber!” I accused.

The incubus raised his hands, feigning innocence. “Dread Prospero opened the coffin. We merely took what was ours.”

“Yours? How so? And where is my father? Is he…” I faltered.

“Dead?” he paused, red eyes glittering. “Alas for him, he is quite alive. He is held prisoner.”

“Is he well?”

“He endures his torture bravely.”

“Torture!”

“He could avoid all this unpleasantness, if he merely told us what we wish to know.”

“Which is?”

Seir’s scarlet eyes glittered. “Do you wish to tell us what your father will not, Darling? If you do, he can be set free from the Torturers who torment him.” He drifted closer, emerging out of the darkness. “Shall we embrace and whisper secrets to each other while we share what pleasures we may? You need not fear me. I will be gentler than summer rain.”

His sweet words and perfect face worked upon me like a narcotic. My mind swam and unpleasantly alluring images began crowding my thoughts. Desperately, I wished I had salt, or an athame, or water from the Styx, anything with which I might draw a ward between us, except Seir was one of those rare creatures who could cross the Styx. So, Styx water would not do.

A stab of fear numbed my limbs. I recalled Father’s dissertation on the effect of demons on the human soul. Could exposure to Mephisto be weakening my defenses against the incubus? I did not recall feeling so vulnerable last time we met.

With a snort of amused annoyance, I recalled why. I dared not look away from the demon, even for an instant, so I prayed with my eyes open, calling upon my Lady for her protection. Like a cool autumn wind, Her answer blew the cobwebs of the demon’s ensnarements from my mind, leaving me calm and alert.

My thoughts clear again, I turned my attention to defending the vault. Lightning symbols carved into the wall at various intervals marked places where Father had hidden electric batteries as part of the Vault defenses. I could draw from these nodes to cast lightning bolts with my flute. Lightning would harm the demon, but it would also damage a great many other things here, some of which were invaluable or would be dangerous if unleashed from their protective wardings.

Caurus stepped before me and raised his hornpipe, which was similar in nature to my flute, except it commanded only the winds and airy servants of the Northwest Wind.

The demon smiled indulgently and leaned upon my brother’s staff. “Trouble us not, Little Spiritling, you have no power here. You are underground, locked away from the sky. No winds will answer your call.”

Caurus eyed the walls of the Vault nervously, as if only now realizing that we were cut off from his element. I prayed he would not become claustrophobic. I had seen that happen to Aerie Ones. He held his ground, however, and said in a voice that was loud, if a bit shaky, “Keep your distance, messenger fiend. Milady has nothing to say to you!”

“Oh, but she does,” the incubus said as he leaned against the threshold of the darkened Elemental Chamber. “Or at least, she has things she would hear me say to her.” To me, he murmured in his syrup-sweet voice. “Send him away, that we might disport ourselves together. Or, if it would please you, he may join us. It matters not to me.”

This time his blandishments had no effect upon me. Frowning sternly, I pointed two fingers at the nearest lightning symbol, then raised my flute to my lips.

“No! Wait!” Seir cried, alarmed. “I will answer your question!”

I hesitated, torn. At this moment, I had the advantage. If I waited, he might catch me unaware. On the other hand, I was mightily curious about what Hell wanted from my father. Curiosity won out. I lowered the flute.