Prospero in Hell (49 page)

“Would that I was!” Astreus lowered his head. “No. I was merely a hapless bystander, constrained by my oath of fellowship to aid Mephisto. I brought him water from the Lethe, so that, in drinking it, he could forget his oath and escape. In revenge, the quee…” He doubled over coughing, as he had once before upon my hearth in the guise of Ferdinand. I stepped toward him, but as I did so, the earth fell away again, and I soared among the stars, which revolved around me like burning diamonds. I could not have reached him to help him had his life depended on it. With a great effort, I wrenched my thoughts back to my body. Backing away from him, I found myself in my father’s house again, my feet again firm upon the stone of the balcony.

Recovering from his coughing bout, he said hoarsely, “I beg your pardon, Miranda. Part of my heinous oath forbids me from revealing the truth about she whose true nature you already know. For my part in helping your brother, I was sentenced to take the Last Walk—to drink of the Lethe myself and fulfill that sevenyear’s obligation to Hell.”

“And then she held a celebration in your honor.” I nodded.

“A cruel ruse. The queen could hardly tell the court she intended to tithe a Lord of the High Council!”

“Why did you not ask the Elf King for help?”

“She had bound me to secrecy with dark oaths, then compelled me join in the merriment and smile as she mocked me.”

“But how could you be Seir? The demon Seir was already hunting Theo when we first met you, back in 1627.

“The Demonslayer destroyed the previous Seir, back in 1635. This was soon after I reached the pit. Before his demise was published, I donned his robes and took his name. True demons, such as Baelor and Osae, return to Hell when they are slain. But demons who had once been elves die the True Death when they are killed. The previous Seir had been a tithed elf, too.” He scowled. “Apparently, we elves make good incubi.”

For some unaccountable reasons, I blushed. “I can’t imagine why.”

Raising my head, I blurted out a question that had been haunting me. “Do you remember the things you said and did as Seir and as Ferdinand?”

He tilted his head back and narrowed his eyes. My cheeks grew even warmer as I recalled some of the things he had done.

“Much of it. Some is hazy. I remember my time as Ferdinand better than as Seir, but this might be because so many things Ferdinand encountered—you,
Ariel, Mephisto’s figurine—were familiar to me as Astreus.” His mirror gaze gave nothing away. I had no notion which parts he remembered and which were hazy.

Of course! That had been his own figurine he picked up by the fireplace, the one he was counting upon to save him! No wonder he had questioned me about it so intently. And to think I had thought he was jealous.

“Why did you, as Ferdinand, claim my father had sent him to Hell?”

“It is the calling of demons to breed mistrust and discord.”

“That makes sense,” I replied, especially considering the distress these claims had stirred in my heart. “Mab kept warning us about that.”

“Mab is wise in the ways of spirits. He knows much.”

I found myself gazing up into his eyes, which had turned a brilliant blue. “You did all this for my brother’s sake?”

“For him, and for the hope his friendship brought me. The hope that, with my help, his sister might one day become a Sibyl and free me from the oath that binds all elves to Hell.”

Astreus stepped closer. His eyes were now as green as emeralds, the same shade as mine. He placed a hand on my shoulder and lowered his head. His breath came warm upon my face. Heart hammering, I hoped he might kiss me.

Perhaps he did, but if so, I was no longer present to enjoy it.

I dreamt of a tower of thorns rising from mist the color of a dead man’s face. These barbs were so terrible that my eyes burned, and blood ran down my cheeks, just from looking at them. Then, I was within the tower, bound by spiny vines to a bed of thorns. Their spiky tips gouged my flesh, sending shooting pains throughout my limbs. Beneath me, needlelike points pushed into my spinal cord. I feared I would soon be paralyzed.

My thoughts chased each other endlessly. I could not understand where I was, or how I had left the safety of my father’s home. Perhaps Astreus had betrayed me. Perhaps he had been Seir all along.

Oh, why had I not listened to Mab?

Robed figures carrying mist-gray sickles glided into the chamber where I lay. They opened their mouths and spoke pain instead of words. As I writhed, spasms of agony racking my body with each utterance, I understood them to be asking me to denounce Heaven and swear an oath of obedience to Hell.

I cried out to my Lady, but she did not heed me. Terrified, I struggled, striving against the vines that immobilized me. The bindings held fast, and my efforts only increased the agony. Pain exploded in my mind, washing out thought the way a brilliant light washes out vision. Yet pain is merely sensation and can be resisted. It was the wrongness that undid me.

As I lay, writhing in agony, I became aware of strange unnatural impulses that grew more powerful by the moment, until they ruled me like a burning lust. Much the way a lover longs for the caress of his beloved, I longed to rip open my stomach and play with my innards, running the intestines lovingly through my hand. I wanted to impale my eyeballs upon the thorns—so vividly could I picture the exquisite moment when the sharp point would pierce the soft gelatinous globes and they would go splat. I
desired to strive against the vines so as to force the cruel barbs to plunge repeatedly into my tender flesh. Hunger gnawed at me, but it was a hunger to consume fire and to drink bile, to eat refuse and lick grime. Most of all, I wanted, thirsted for,
needed
the pleasure that comes from violating innocence and sullying goodness. Without that, surely I would die, my very body consumed by the heat of my desires. Yet, even that thought caused a blush of eager excitement.

Anything! I would do anything to end this nightmare… if it was even a nightmare.

Swear,
whispered a voice in my mind,
swear the oath and be free of this anguish
.
What is Heaven to thee?

Then, the tower was gone. In its place, a glade of feathery ferns beneath towering ancient pines. I knelt there, curled against Astreus’s chest, his arms encircling me. My body quaked with fear. The elf lord held me tightly, caressing my hair and whispering soothing words.

“Hush, Sweet Miranda, all is right with the world. The nightmare is banished.”

“Where are we? What happened to me?” I whispered, my voice shaky.

“We have become intertwined, you and I, our fates linked, ever since that fateful midsummer’s day when first we breathed the same air. Now, you even dream my dreams, for which you have my deepest regrets. We elves often walk among one another’s dreams. But humans cannot, so I took no steps to guard you.”

“If men cannot… how did it happen? Unless…” I blinked back tears. Astreus regarded me silently, waiting. “My brothers claim that my m-mother was… some kind of ogress.”

“That would explain much,” the elf replied gravely. “I offer you my condolences.”

“How so?”

“Sheep huddle in flocks and wolves run in packs, but we elves are of no congregation. We belong neither to the Company of Men, nor to the Choir of Angels. A gathering of elves is like unto a clowder of cats. While scholars may have put a name to a collection of felines, no one has ever witnessed a clowder. Upon occasion, cats are seen perched near each other, but there is never a community among them.

“So it is with us. Nor can we find pity in our heart for those unlike ourselves, any more than pack pities flock, or swarm pities gaggle. Thus, we find
our days solitary and cold. Is it so with you? Do you find yourself separate from all around you, like the offspring of a sheep and a horse, neither of flock nor of herd?”

“Something like that,” I murmured tremulously, resentful to learn yet another thing that supported Erasmus’s theory regarding my mother. In my heart of hearts, I felt certain Erasmus was wrong, and yet there was so much evidence suggesting otherwise.

Almost as if reading my thoughts, Astreus reached forward and tilted my chin, regarding my face. “You have none of the brutishness common in ogre-get. Perhaps, your mother was some more celestial spirit: a fairy, perhaps, or a sylph.”

I did not answer but thought glumly to myself, Or perhaps my father consecrated me to Eurynome to cure me of that very brutishness.

I trembled in his arms, amidst the fragrant ferns and silent pine trees. He bent his head and kissed the center of my forehead. A warmth spread through me, and some of the fear began to drain away.

“What… was that I just… You dream about pain and torture?”

“A memory only,” Astreus said soothingly. “Dredged up by our words.”

“That was your memory?” I was shocked to think of him as suffering such torment. “No wonder you swore the oath!”

Astreus’s eyes went the color of dried blood. “After the war between Heaven and Hell, the gates of Paradise were closed against us. Of those left outside, most descended below, becoming demons. Those who were left remained in the places in between, becoming elves. The Great Seven of Hell then made war upon the elves. When the battle finally ended, the terms called for the elves to pay a tithe to Hell. The members of the High Council were called upon to swear an oath promising to uphold this new order.

“I was the last elf to swear the oath to Hell,” he said. “I would not swear, for so long as I did not acknowledge the demons as my master, I was still free to reenter Heaven should the gates open.”

“But weren’t you cast from Heaven for rebelling?” I asked.

“I, rebel?” Astreus drew himself up, his eyes suddenly tempestuous. “Never!”

“Then how did you come to be trapped outside the gate?” I asked.

“In the days before the fall, I was—for lack of a more apt term—an explorer angel. My task was to fly into the Void and bring the light of Heaven to places where it had not previously shone. When the trumpet call came to
return and join the battle against Lucifer and his rebels…” A great sadness came over Astreus’s face. “I tarried.”

“And by the time you got back, the gates were shut?” I asked, placing my hand gently upon his arm.

He nodded and lowered his head, ashamed.

Raising his head, he continued. “In an effort to persuade me to swear, the demons kept me imprisoned in the Tower of Pain for well past a thousand years, the thorns of which are so painful that even glancing upon them causes harm.”

“I saw them.” I trembled again. Reaching up, I touched my cheek. My fingers came away stained with blood. I cried out, terrified, and Astreus drew me more tightly against his chest.

“Hush. ’Tis only a dream,” he promised reassuringly.

So, this was a dream, too? That made sense. It explained why I was not back at my father’s house. My senses told me I was seated amidst sweet-smelling pines and soft feathery ferns. If I concentrated, however, I could feel the hard stone of the balcony under my feet. I looked down at my hands, still dripping red with my blood, and shivered.

“But for you… it was real.”

His eyes turned pale as bone. “Each day, I was tortured thus, yet still I would not yield to Hell, for that meant forgoing all hope of returning to Heaven.”

“You withstood
that
? F-for centuries? For a millennium?” I cringed, embarrassed at my own weakness. “I had hardly lasted ten seconds.”

“I would have resisted forever, except the other elves began tithing my people, and I could not conscience that. So, I relented and swore. These events took place long, long ago—before the birth of your planet, probably before the birth of your sun—yet still they weigh heavily upon me.” He paused. “It was because of this same oath to Hell that I was constrained to obey when Queen Maeve ordered me to take the Last Walk, after she discovered how I had helped your brother Mephisto to escape her trap.”

“But I thought your people were of the air. Surely, there was not air before the birth of our sun?”

Astreus laughed. “Do you think your world is the only one with air? Nay, Mab’s race is far older than that.”

“A thousand years!” I repeated, looking at him with newfound respect. “I could not have held out an hour!”