The Undrowned Child (39 page)

Maria moaned with terror.

Then Il Traditore’s voice changed. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, my gondola and my bones, if you please,” he hissed to the assembled company on the opposite bank. “I desire to rouse up my little tame Creature again. With my body restored to me, that should be well within my powers. And then I shall be back to claim my Spell Almanac, and that shall be the end of all argument, and of Venice too, ha ha!”

Teo sank down to her neck in the water, keeping herself well hidden behind the ranks of mermaids bursting with unspoken insults. Lussa had her finger to her lips and a warning look in her eyes.

Her face stiff as a poker, Lussa now pushed the gondola with the bones the twenty yards across the canal. Bajamonte Tiepolo caught it expertly in the hand that slid out of his cloak. With an imperious wave, he stepped into the gondola. The suit of armor clanked in after him and took up the oar. Bajamonte Tiepolo unrolled the cloth under his arm. He threw the fine tapestry over the bones, and patted them tenderly under the fabric. He tied Maria to the prow of the boat, around which the sharks swam hopefully. The gondola moved away from the shore, passing by the boat where the crab baskets were tied. With her heart in her mouth, Teo watched Renzo duck down into the water inside his crab basket. Unfortunately, in the silence, his departure was marked by a soft but incriminating plop. All heads, on both sides of the canal, swung towards the ripples.

“Stop! Backwards!” Bajamonte Tiepolo ordered his suit of armor. As they approached the crab basket where Renzo crouched, Il Traditore reached out and cut it loose. He motioned to the armor to tie the basket to the stern of his gondola. The sharks immediately began to nudge it in a bullying way. Renzo’s terrified face appeared above the water, gasping for breath. Then he disappeared below the surface, pulling the basket’s lid back down over his head.

“Onwards!” ordered Bajamonte Tiepolo. To the assembled crowd, he announced, “Your Studious Son has joined the party. Hoorah!”

To his sharks, he snarled, “Not yet, my friends! Keep your distance!”

The gondola made its way up the empty, silent Grand Canal towards the lagoon, followed—at a wary distance—by the escort of fins. Renzo’s head reappeared above the basket. His eyes sought out Teo in the crowd, and never left hers as he was rowed further and further away. Teo moaned to Lussa, “When Bajamonte Tiepolo realizes that those are not really his bones … Maria and Renzo …”

“If That happens, They shall only be the First to die.” Lussa stroked Teo’s wet hair and pulled her close. “Five Human Minutes gone,” she observed.

The minutes passed with agonizing slowness, ten … fifteen … seventeen. Everyone gazed at the gondola of Bajamonte Tiepolo speeding out to the lagoon to revive the Creature and marry the sea. Could Renzo’s plan work? Il Traditore’s gondola plowed smoothly through the water. Everyone held their breath.

In the midst of all the silence came a strange tearing sound that echoed up and down the Grand Canal. The water at the edges of the canal started to move in circular eddies.

“The tentacles of the Creature, the poles!” cried Teo, her heart jumping with fear. “The Creature is already coming to life again! The bubonic plague …”

But the striped poles did not reappear. The movement came from the three-legged poles, the bricole: the ones that the mermaids had been freeing from chains and seaweed. One by one, the bricole uprooted themselves and began to goose-step through the water in lumbering pursuit of Bajamonte Tiepolo’s gondola. Each one had a good cocàl seagull on top, gazing intently ahead, eyes shining in its little black head. It looked as if the birds were driving.

Lussa clapped her hands. “At last! Our Ancient Treaty with the Bricole promised their Aid in the Ultimate Danger. They shall stop Bajamonte Tiepolo, by building a Wall of Themselves around Him.”

Teo’s voice was frantic. “But look how slow they are! They’ll never catch up! And what about the bones and the gondoliers’ children? How will we know if they have succeeded—or failed?”

Only the older children had gone with their fathers’ boats. The younger ones still waited by a herd of gondolas. Teo grabbed an oar from one child and clambered unceremoniously into his gondola.

“I can’t just watch,” she challenged. “Are you coming? Are you coming to help me save Renzo and Maria?”

“You don’t know how to use that, let me!” said the little boy. Teo recognized Sergio, one of the children Renzo had freed from a pirate gibbet during the battle.

Lussa and a dozen mermaids assembled around the stern of the boat and helped push it through the water towards the gondola of Bajamonte Tiepolo. By now his dark figure was barely visible in the mist, like a faint punctuation mark on a page.

Sergio wailed, “The flood! It is coming now.”

On her left and right, Teo saw the water pouring into Venice. It had risen above the highest steps over every jetty, flooded every ground floor. Gouts of muddy water spurted out of the drains. Cataracts swept down the narrow alleys awash with chairs, clothes and food. Waves tore the paving stones from the streets, smashing windows. As they passed Santa Maria della Salute, Teo saw the yellow-flecked waves creeping up the steps of the church. To her left, the Piazzetta was a deep lake. A tide of books flowed out of the Marciana Library.

Sergio rowed on doggedly, his cheeks dripping with tears as he watched his city slowly drowning.

“One ton of mud for every Venetian,” Teo remembered. “That’s what Bajamonte Tiepolo promised.”

It was hard to chase after the very last person she wanted to see. Half of Teo silently urged the mermaids on as they shouldered the stern of the gondola. The other half silently begged them to go slower.

But in five minutes they had gained considerably on Il Traditore. He stared straight ahead, apparently lost in his dreams of victory and death. His sharks gamboled at a wary distance from their master’s boat, in a happy mood at the thought of their forthcoming meal. Maria lay limp at the prow, not even struggling with the ropes that bound her.

“She’s fainted again,” guessed Teo. “That’s good.”

It would be a mercy for Maria not to know what was happening to her now and what might happen next. Renzo’s head appeared above the top of his crab basket every few minutes, as he gulped for air and retreated back into the safety of the cage. He too was staring straight ahead. He had not yet seen Teo and Sergio in the gondola.

They were half a mile behind Il Traditore, then a quarter of a mile, and then just a hundred yards away from him. Teo clutched the only weapon she had—The Key to the Secret City.

The passing seconds tolled audibly in her heart. At the twentieth minute the gondola suddenly stopped. A huge howl swelled up over the whole lagoon, like the worst rumble of thunder ever heard in the most violent tempest.

The silhouette of Bajamonte Tiepolo ripped the tapestry off the fake bones and stood up in his gondola, shaking with rage. The line of his sight fell on Maria, tied to the prow. He lurched towards her, pulling a stiletto dagger from his robes.

Teo whispered, “It’s happened. The real bones are buried. And he knows. Oh no—Maria!”

Then she stared in disbelief. Behind Bajamonte Tiepolo’s back, and just behind the suit of armor, Renzo was climbing right out of the crab basket and hauling himself up onto the stern of the gondola.

“Renzo! You don’t have to die too!” she whispered, as if he could hear her.

A mermaid marveled, “Limber as a day-old goat!”

Teo would never forget what Renzo did next. To her amazement, he kicked the legs out from under the suit of armor. With one agile leap, he maneuvered the suit straight into the water—where it plunged silently into the depths—and at the same time he took its place at the oar, so that the gondola continued to move forward, fast and smoothly, without skipping a beat. Il Traditore was busily bent over Maria. He did not hear or see what was happening behind him.

“Bravo, Lorenzo!” exclaimed Lussa.

“Faster,” Teo pressed Sergio. “Can’t we catch them up?”

As their gondola sped through the water, Teo watched Renzo, who was intent on Bajamonte Tiepolo’s back. What was Il Traditore doing with that knife?

“Why doesn’t Renzo do something now, while he has the advantage?” she moaned.

Sergio replied, “An honorable Venetian would never strike an enemy from behind. We defend our history with dignity: that’s what Renzo would say.”

“For goodness’ sake!” expostulated Teo. “That’s just vain and obtuse and …”

At last Bajamonte Tiepolo rose and turned away from Maria. In one hand was the dagger. In the other was a long rope of Maria’s beautiful hair.

As Il Traditore turned and saw Renzo, he shouted with anger. Renzo lifted his oar out of the water, turned it around till it was horizontal in his hands, and rushed at Bajamonte Tiepolo. His first blow struck Il Traditore in his side. Across the water came the sharp sound of ribs cracking.

For a moment, Bajamonte Tiepolo teetered on the edge of the gondola, dropping Maria’s hair and the dagger in the water.

“Fall! Fall!” urged Teo and Sergio.

The sharks circled in closer, deeply interested in this new development. Maria’s hair was snapped up by the fastest gray monster, which disappeared under the water in a fit of choking. Some of its companions followed it down, with not very kind intentions written on their ugly faces.

Their master still struggled to right himself. But at the last moment, just when it seemed he would topple into the water, Bajamonte Tiepolo lunged straight at Renzo. He grabbed the end of the oar and seized it, striking Renzo a ringing blow to the side of the head. Renzo stood swaying on the stern, holding his head with one hand. Blood pulsed out from between his fingers.

Teo and Sergio were now close enough to hear what Il Traditore had to say next. Behind Bajamonte Tiepolo’s shoulder, Teo saw Renzo at last register the approach of their gondola with a brief, grateful smile.

“Heroics you want, boy?” Il Traditore snarled. “Heroics you shall get!”

And he snapped the gondola oar in two, throwing one half to Renzo.

“Let’s fight for your life!” he said sarcastically, as if offering an excellent bargain. “That is to say, I might as well extract some pleasure from prolonging your death.”

“Lussa! Can’t you do something?” breathed Teo.

“Not while They are aboard the Boat. If We tipped Them in the Water, the Sharks are presently too Excited to be lulled by our Singing.”

Renzo grasped his length of oar gamely. Bajamonte Tiepolo laughed. “For whom are you about to die, boy? For the girl Teodora Gasperin? Why bother? She’ll be dead before nightfall. For the little shaveling down there?” He pointed to the unconscious Maria. “She’ll be the next to go.”

Teo breathed, “Coward!”

Bajamonte Tiepolo continued, “So, boy, are you throwing your life away for the pretty fishwives? They’ll soon be poisoned by my Creature. Or do you wish to die for this doomed city, which shall soon be mine?”

Renzo shouted, “And what would your Venice be? A swamp with a few ruins half submerged and corpses floating around?”

“You paint such an attractive picture. But the point is, it would be my swamp. My ruins. I’d be the Supreme Ruler.…”

“The Supreme Ruler of mud and death.”

“The Studious Son’s up on his back legs!” commented a mermaid, admiringly.

Bajamonte Tiepolo quivered with rage as Renzo continued relentlessly, “We all know you hate Venice. But what do you love, Bajamonte Tiepolo? You don’t even love your own men and beasts. You left them to die when you fled the battlefield. You didn’t care. You’re stupid, Bajamonte Tiepolo. You only know how to hate. Which is much easier than knowing how to love. And you’re a coward, through and through. You disgust me. I’m sorry for you.”

“Sorry for me?” sneered Il Traditore. “You dare to be sorry for me?”

But Teo, leaning forward in her gondola, heard a catch in Bajamonte Tiepolo’s voice. Renzo had said something that had penetrated all his pride and hatred.

Unfortunately for Renzo, while pity reduced mutilated spirits in-the-Slaughterhouse to quivering hopelessness, it only made Bajamonte Tiepolo more murderous. He lashed out with his half of the oar, striking Renzo an ugly blow across the other side of the head. The skin broke and fresh blood poured out of the wound above his left cheekbone. Renzo sagged to one knee, dangerously close to the edge of the boat. Sergio gripped Teo’s wrist painfully hard.

“It must be different for ghosts who are in-the-Meltings,” thought Teo, and was surprised to see that thought written out in the air a few yards away. Then she realized that Sergio was holding the same wrist on which Lussa had found the Telepathic Spell that projected her thoughts. The words hovered in the air behind Il Traditore’s back.

Renzo caught Teo’s eye and quickly sketched the shape of an open book in the air with his left hand. Then he pointed to her head. She realized, “He wants me to remember what Professor Marìn said about how to treat ghosts in-the-Meltings.”

Mentally, Teo rifled through Ways with Wayward Ghosts, skimming through the pages that explained their provenance and natures. At last, she slowed down, in the chapter on “Dangerous and Conclusive Encounters.” She forced herself to read through entire paragraphs as they appeared in her mind’s eye, desperately searching for something that would be relevant to a situation where her best friend was fighting single-handedly with one of the nastiest spirits that ever dwelled in-the-Meltings.

Renzo had risen back to his feet and was battling bravely. The clash of wood on wood rang out across the silent lagoon. The whole world seemed to be holding its breath: not a bird twittered, not a sigh of wind stirred.

Il Traditore’s weak points were his legs and feet. They did not hold him up as solidly as Renzo’s. This fact had not escaped Renzo, and he was parrying expertly now, wielding the oar first one side and then the other, trying to topple Bajamonte Tiepolo from the boat.

At last Teo’s memory lit on the right page. She read, “When fighting one-to-one with a Ghost who is in-the-Meltings, always …”

Her concentration broke, for Bajamonte Tiepolo had struck Renzo another sharp blow, this time to the shoulder. A rip in his shirt showed a jagged wound bristling with splinters of wood. Teo felt the pain in her own shoulder. Renzo righted himself again and used his other arm to push his end of the oar under Il Traditore’s knee, tripping him up.