Prospero in Hell (8 page)

The Greatest Gift

To look into the eyes of another and see one’s self: this is the greatest of gifts, the true Gift of the Sibyl.

Conclusion

Wide Wandering Love adores Mankind, but Mankind holds no special importance to Her; for She cares equally for all: Elves, Djinn, Spiritlings,
Angels, animals, trees, flowers, and even Demons and Dwellers in the Night. The very elements themselves rejoice in Her love, standing firm or fleeing as She requires. So great is Her compassion that She will not pause while even one of these remains in darkness. All will return to roost beneath the comforting wing of the Most High before She takes Her rest.

Three times, I read through the
Book of the Sibyl,
meditating over every word. Once I understood the gist, I closed my eyes and prayed, asking my Lady for understanding and illumination. Then, I reread the book several times more, in light of my meditations revealed.

The
Book of the Sibyl
was everything I had hoped it would be. After five hundred years of searching, I now understood why the rank of Sibyl eluded me.

Sibylhood was the highest honor my Lady, the living embodiment of freedom, could bestow. As I had suspected in the chapel a week ago, no one who enslaved an entire race qualified as a representative for the living symbol of freedom, even if that race was enslaved for the good of mankind. Oh, how Mab was going to laugh when I told him.

But what choice did I have?

Had I learned this a hundred years ago, I could have broken my flute and depended upon Father, Gregor, and Theophrastus to hold the Aerie Ones in check if they began destroying mankind, to subdue them as they had the salamanders who caused the Great Fire in London and so many other supernatural menaces. But Gregor was dead, Father was in Hell, and Theophrastus was old, dying. If I freed the Aerie Ones now, who would prevent them from destroying mankind?

Had Astreus been at hand, I could have risked asking him for help. True, elves were not to be trusted, but he was the Lord of the Winds, the Aerie Ones’ liege lord, who represented them on the High Council. He could bend them to his will, should he desire to do so. Considering how strongly he objected to their current state of servitude, perhaps he would have been willing to step in and keep them from having to be bound again. With Astreus
away upon mysterious business in the Void, however, there would be no help from that quarter.

The secret of Sibylhood was mine, and I could make no use of it.

The sketch of Astreus’s coat-of-arms, which he had handed me when he won our wager, slipped out from between the pages. It showed a shield divided in half on a diagonal with a picture of a cloudy sky, white clouds on blue, on the top, and a darker starry sky on the bottom. I smiled and pressed it to my cheek. The gratitude I felt toward Astreus for bringing me this book—for finding the disintegrating original, copying it in his own looping hand, and keeping it for me for over three hundred years—burst over me like floodwaters over a dam. Had he been present, I should have kissed him.

Strange. Twice in my life I had waited to meet a man and had met instead with disappointment, only to discover lately that both men had been kept from me by forces beyond their control.

I pictured how my life might have been had things been otherwise. Had Prince Ferdinand Di Napoli not disappeared in 1474, he and I would have wed. It was an easy thing to imagine the life we might have led together, a life of contemplation and joy, perhaps with children to fill my days. In time, we would have been king and queen of Naples, and our days would have expanded to include parties and politics. Then, within the natural span, we would have grown old and passed away, “our little lives rounded with a sleep.”

Father might still have wed Isabella Medici, the marriage that produced Mephisto, Theo, and Erasmus. Without the Water of Life, however, he would have grown old and died long before engendering my other siblings.

The life I might have led had Astreus met me by the Avon in 1634 was far less certain. It is unlikely the elf lord would have figured into it prominently. I could hardly have married an elf, despite Mephisto’s urgings. Nor would Astreus have offered for my hand, hawks not being known for marrying doves and all that. Yet, how might my life have been altered if he had given me the
Book of the Sibyl
then, back when my family was still whole? What wonders might have been open to us all, had I achieved Sibylhood during the reign of King Charles I?

A bitterness rose suddenly in my throat. What if Ferdinand—this new Ferdinand who had reappeared in my life—were telling the truth, and Father was responsible for his disappearance upon the eve of our marriage? Could Father have had a hand in Astreus’s banishment as well? Two months ago, the idea would have seemed laughable, but, now…

I thought of Ferdinand standing beside my father’s hearth nearly a week
ago with the carved figurine of Astreus in his hand. The two men were so very different. Ferdinand was a warm Mediterranean breeze blown in from my childhood, while Astreus was more like the storm winds for which he was named—sometimes hot, sometimes cold, always unpredictable.

I had particularly enjoyed my long talk with Ferdinand. After all these centuries, what a novel pleasure it had been to have a confidant with whom I could relax who was not a member of my family. With the elf lord, the exact opposite was true. I had to be ever on guard and watch my every word. And yet, there was something captivating about the Lord of the Winds, as if some bond had been forged between us, the nature of which I did not understand.

There was no purpose to comparing them, of course. The elf had returned to the Void. I would not see him again. Ferdinand, on the other hand, I would see in less than a fortnight at my brother Erasmus’s New Year’s party. The thought made my heart beat faster. If I freed the Aerie Ones and successfully became a Sibyl, we could be marr—.

The library door creaked open.

“Ma’am?” Mab plopped himself down in another armchair. “Just wanted to go over a few things, if you have a moment?”

“Yes, of course.” I hid the coat-of-arms sketch inside the back cover and closed the little black book.

“I’ve just been going over what we know.” Mab flipped through his notebook. “We’re still no closer on most of these questions than last time we talked, down in the Caribbean, Ma’am, but, here’s the big ones we haven’t touched on recently.”

He handed the notebook to me. I read:

1. What’s up with Mephisto turning into a demon?
   
2. What’s supposed to happen on Twelfth Night?
   
3. What was Mr. Prospero trying to do on September 23rd, when he freed the Three Shadowed Ones? And how do we rescue Mr. Prospero from Hell? (Note: Three Shadowed Ones are Baelor of the Baleful Eye—mind reader, Seir of the Shadows—teleporting incubus, and Osae the Red—shapechanger.)
   
4. Where did Mr. Prospero get his magic books and did he really turn the books into the magical staffs the Prospero Family now carry, like the demon Baelor of the Baleful Eye claims?
   
5. What’s up with this Ferdinand Di Napoli guy showing up and
   claiming Mr. Prospero dumped him alive in Hell five hundred years ago?
   
6. Where’s Mr. Gregor’s dead body?
   
7. Where is Mr. Titus?
   
8. What’s up with the voodoo dollhouse of Prospero’s Mansion in the library at Madam Logistilla’s place in the Okefenokee Swamp?
   
9. Does Mr. Prospero have Miss Miranda under a spell that makes her obedient to him?
   

I read them over carefully, snorting at the last one, then closed the notebook and handed it back to him.

“The only question we’re any closer to answering is number seven,” I said. “Thanks to Father Christmas’s scrying pool, we now know Titus’s children are at Logistilla’s estate in Georgia. When we get back to Oregon, I’m going to send an Aerie One to find out if Titus is living there—Logistilla hardly uses the place, she prefers her home on St. Dismas’s—or if there are any clues in the house as to where he might be. I’d like to visit myself, and meet the children. They should not be in any immediate danger, however, as they do not have staffs. So, we had better find the others first.”

“Can’t you do it from here?” Mab gestured at my flute, scowling. “Send one of us, I mean.”

“I could call up and send a local Aerie One, but I’d rather send someone I know and trust.”

“Good point.” Mab nodded. “Might be a good idea to post someone savvy enough to keep an eye on that dollhouse, too, while we’re at it. Considering that Titus’s children and freaky voodoo dollhouse are in the same mansion.”

I shivered. “Hadn’t thought of it quite that way. Let’s send one of your people, someone who is schooled in the magical arts who can tell us whether there are spells on that thing and whether it would be safe to move it to a safer place.

“Here’s a question you might want to add to your list,” I added. “ ‘What is this curse on my family that the demon Baelor of the Baleful Eye mentioned?’ ”

Mab scribbled it down. “Oh, and I forgot, Number Eleven: ‘How do we track down the teleporting perp?’ Er, beg your pardon, Ma’am, I mean ‘track down Mr. Ulysses.’

“As to the rest of the questions, Ma’am, I’ve got some leads. My people
are following up a couple of things as well, but…” Mab chewed on the back of his shiny pen. “Um… there’s something else, Ma’am. Something I’m reluctant to talk about, but think you’d better know.”

“Yes? What is that?”

“It’s about Lord Astreus, Ma’am.”

“Oh?”

A cold draft was blowing against the back of my neck. It had probably been there for some time, but, caught up in reading the
Book of the Sibyl,
I had not noticed. Now, I found myself shivering. I unfolded an afghan that had been thrown over the back of my chair and arranged it around my shoulders. A faint pleasant scent of lanolin clung to the creamy yarn.

“I thought you should know about the conversation I overheard, Ma’am. I came upon Lord Astreus at Santa’s house. I was getting up my courage to say something to him, when your brother rounded a far corner. Lord Astreus greeted Mephisto and asked him how the years had been treating him. Mephisto answered in his usual dopey way, and they chatted for a few moments.”

A growing icy sensation in my stomach warned me that I did not want to hear the rest of this, but curiosity held me captive. “About what?”

“Normal stuff, like the weather and the low décolletage of the elven ladies this season. That was your brother’s contribution. Then—and this is the part I wanted to tell you about—Lord Astreus’s voice dropped so low I had trouble making out his words, but he said something like: ‘When last I saw you, circumstances were somewhat different, my friend. How did you manage to overcome your… affliction?’ ”

“Interesting!” I leaned forward, pulling the afghan closer. “What did Mephisto say?”

“Ma’am, your brother freaked!” Mab gestured emphatically with his pen. “His eyes fixed on the cup in Lord Astreus’s hand, and he began whimpering, ‘It’s y-you… . You’re the one who made me drink!’ Then, he started screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘No! No! Get away! I don’t want to forget!’ ”

Dread gripped me like a vice. “What happened next?”

“Nothing.” Mab shrugged. “Lord Astreus just walked away. His back was to me, so I couldn’t gauge his reaction. As soon as he left, Mephisto reverted back to normal—if you can call anything that nut case does, normal. He acted as if nothing had happened; just poured himself a drink from a nearby samovar and went hummingly on his way. By Setebos, he’s odd!

“Anyway,” Mab continued, “at the time, I thought it was just the Harebrain being his usual whacked-out self. But now, in light of that mural—I’m not so sure… .” Mab paused. “Do you remember the elves talking about a party in honor of Lord Astreus, for having excused them from the tithe?”

I nodded, recalling the terrible haunted look that had come over Astreus when I mentioned the incident.

“I…” Mab sighed. “I hate to speculate without facts, Ma’am, especially as Lord Astreus once did a great good for my people.”