Prospero Regained (28 page)

An enormous fungus sprouted from the magnificent dome of the Duomo, the cathedral where I once had waited in vain for the murdered Ferdinand. The
Castello Sforzesco,
my childhood home, was dark and corroded, its walls dripping with blood. The
Filarete
Tower, where I had first spoken to little Theo, looked rotten and swollen, like an overripe fruit. The
Arco Della Pace,
which I had seen in pictures, though never in person, as I had not returned to Milan since it had been built, dripped with moss and shiny poisonous-looking vines.

Oh, my poor Milan!

Looking at it nearly broke my heart. I felt new sympathy for Astreus and his memories of lost heaven. Being trapped here, in this twisted reflection of the place I had loved, would be a far worse punishment than any physical torture.

Nor was I the only one affected.

Gregor drew back. “What horror is this?”

“It looks like home,” Theo cried, “only horribly wrong.”

“It’s the skyscrapers. They’re new,” Mephisto suggested cheerfully.

Theo turned on him angrily, and Mephisto shrank back. Eager to redeem himself, Mephisto made a fist and shook it at the pale sickly yellow-gray sky. “Oh dastardly demons, to have done such a thing to our town!”

Again, he glanced at the city before us, and his cheerful demeanor slipped, showing a brief glimpse of grim, bleak sorrow. Then, he perked up, smiling. Slipping his arm through mine, he pulled me forward. “No time like the present! Let’s go!”

*   *   *

WALKING
the streets of this dark Milan, we stared about us like passersby at a train wreck. Black oily mud oozed up through the cobblestones, as if the city were sinking into a swamp. The streets, the parks, and the
Piazza Mercanti
all crawled with damned souls, literally. Bright red imps with flaming whips drove the unfortunate about on all fours, like cattle. Dark, insubstantial spirits, which Mephisto identified as vengeance-seeking wraiths, hovered everywhere, floating through walls. Some clustered about Erasmus and Theo and would not leave them. They tried to cluster around Gregor as well, but he made the sign of the cross, and a sudden gust of wind drove them away. One tall wisp of a shade even tried to attach itself to me. My wings flared brightly, and it fled, wailing.

The
Naviglio Grande
flowed with crimson blood instead of water. On its banks were strewn thousands of skeletons, which Mephisto said were reminders of victims murdered by the rulers of the city, either openly or in secret. Many of the remains were child-sized; the tiny skulls and hand bones of babies, slain by the rulers of their households, perhaps, lest a different sin be discovered.

The air here was thick with droplets of blood and stank horribly, like spoiled meat. We were all relieved when our path took us away from the waterway.

As we ducked around a particularly large growth of fungus, we came face to face with a brigade of demons. The infernal soldiers had goat legs and corroded tridents. They cackled, a high horrible sound, and poked things with their weapons: pillars, walls, passing souls. Whatever they touched corroded, as if eaten away by some deadly acid. The first demon to spot us screeched eagerly. He and his companions charged toward us.

Erasmus and Theo both began warming up their staffs, but neither could act immediately. Titus and Caliban could wield theirs like ordinary weapons, but they were reluctant to do so, as they did not want them to become corroded. Mab pulled out his lead pipe, I drew out my razor-edged fighting fan, and Mephisto tapped his staff, laughing. Out of the corner of my eye, I began to imagine that half a dozen fanciful creatures were bounding around on the muddy street. Not winged creatures, such had carried us across the swamps, but the chimera and the cockatrice and other deadly beasts.

It was Gregor who saved us.

He strode forward, his hair flowing about his shoulders, and brandished the Seal of Solomon. Laughter, a strange grating sound we seldom heard, issued from his throat. He cried in a great voice, “Back, foul vermin! Or suffer my wrath! For I have been crowned Pope of the One True Church and have, at my beck and call, all the Armies of Heaven!”

Gregor’s crimson robes billowed, and a golden halo shone above his head. The demons drew back.

Then, they sneered mockingly and rushed at him.

My brother moved with rapid grace. Wielding his new staff like a rapier, he dipped it beneath the leading trident’s prongs and then rose to strike the haft, knocking the weapon aside. Facing the foremost demon, he slapped it in the face with the back of his free hand. Solomon’s Ring grazed its skin. Immediately, it withered into a tiny ball.

Gregor pulled a glass vial from under his robes, popped the shrunken remains of the demon inside, and capped it. He held it up for the rest to see. Cowed, they turned and scattered, gibbering. Gregor sealed the vial with his ring and replaced it beneath his robes.

Sighing, Mephisto sent his various friends away. “Gregor gets all the fun.”

Erasmus clapped. “Oh, bravo! Shouldn’t you blow across the top of the ring like a gunslinger, or something?”

Theo, his staff now humming and buzzing, looked Gregor up and down. “That was impressive, Little Brother. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

Gregor bowed respectfully to Theo. “You taught me, Older Brother. Right there.” He extended his staff and pointed at an area of rotting vegetation behind the
Castello Sforzesco
, where the
Parco Sempione
now stood in modern Milan.

Theo barked out a laugh. “And so I did!”

Titus, however, was frowning. “Be careful, Brother Gregor. Remember what you told us about not becoming angry.”

“Angry?” Gregor rasped, grinning. “I haven’t had such a good time in years! Brings back the old vampire hunting days, does it not, old friend?” He asked the snake, who was still curled about his neck. The snake hissed, and Gregor laughed again. “Pshaw. You were never in any danger.”

*   *   *

WE
found Logistilla inside the
castello
. She sat upon the throne in the ducal presence chamber exactly as we had seen her in the crystal globe, a shard of crockery held in her hand as a scepter.

Gregor strode over the rubbish strewn across the floor of the chamber and offered his hand to Logistilla. “Come, Sister,” he said gently, “let us be gone from this place.”

“Noooo!” Logistilla shrieked, drawing herself up. “It is mine! It was always meant to be mine! I was meant to live here! You can’t take me away!”

Gregor went pale with fear. He lunged out and seized her shoulder. Then, his head sank forward, his face slack with relief. To the rest of us, he said merely, “I feared she had died.”

He tried to draw her to her feet, but she would have none of it. She beat on his hand with her sharp piece of pottery, drawing blood. The old man who huddled beside her on the dais looked up from his shard with some interest.

“Mine,” he intoned in a querulous voice. “Mine! Mine! Mine!”

“Definitely envy,” Theo poked at the debris on the floor with the butt of his staff. “She always wanted to live in the
castello
.”

“So, you all know this place?” Mab asked, looking about at the vast structure with its handsome courtyards. He gestured at the walls. “This reddish stone beneath the blood—it looks familiar. Isn’t the Great Hall back in Prospero’s Mansion built from this same stuff?”

I nodded. “The
castello
was our old home in Milan. Mephisto, Theo, and Erasmus were born here—or in the real version of which this is a dark copy…”

“Not copy!” interrupted Mephisto. “Evil twin!”

“By the time Logistilla was born,” I continued, “the Spaniards had taken over and were using the
castello
as their headquarters. So Logistilla grew up in a modest villa. She has always envied the rest of us for having once lived in the grandest place of which she knew.”

“And now she is here.” Titus frowned. “We should not have left her alone so long. Women are weaker than men.” He moved to where she sat and squatted down, gazing at her.

“And this other guy”—Mab jerked his thumb toward the old man—“you said he was her son?” Erasmus and Gregor nodded. Mab made a note. Then, he sniffed, grimacing. “This place smells bad, Ma’am,” he said, his voice low. “
Really
bad.”

“Of course it does, Dopey-head!” Mephisto replied. “The whole city is stinky!”

Mab shook his head, his expression quite serious. “Not rotten bad, Harebrain, evil bad. Someone’s been casting some vile magic here.” He cocked his head. “I’m gonna take a look around. Harebrain, where’d that fancy marble of yours show those voodoo dolls?”

Mab began moving slowly through the presence chamber, sniffing the air, and poking at things with his pipe.

As he moved away, I gazed at the familiar walls, shivering slightly. How strange to see them again, or to see their dark reflection, stranger still when I contemplated the time that had elapsed since last I lived in the
castello
. A month ago, I would have congratulated myself on how far I had come, on my many great achievements in the intervening centuries. But now? All the aspects of my life that I might have praised were either lost or proven an illusion.

Had I gained nothing in the intervening years?

Squatting, Titus took Logistilla’s hand and spoke to her softly.

“Titus?” She looked up hopefully. Comprehension began to dawn behind her eyes and then fled away. “No. He disappointed me. He would never do anything but watch TV. I turned him into a bear.”

“True,” Titus growled, sounding very much like a bear indeed, “but then you turned me back, and here I am.”

“I never turn my animals back,” Logistilla pouted. “At least, I would not have to if Cornelius hadn’t refused to help me anymore, the snake.”

“Actually, Ulysses is the snake,” Mephisto said gaily, pointing at the serpent curled around Gregor’s neck. “Cornelius is more of a bat or a mole.”

So, that was why Logistilla was angry at Cornelius!

I recalled her casting aspersions upon him when we visited her on her island. So, he had been using the
Staff of Persuasion
to influence her customers and then thought better of it. Good for him. Who would have guessed Cornelius would develop scruples?

Gregor hunched his shoulders like a wrestler taking a fighting stance and curled back his lip menacingly, a look I remembered well. It was as if New Gregor had vanished and Old Gregor stood in his place. “Titus,” he asked hoarsely, “why—precisely—did our sister turn you into a bear?”

“You will have to ask her,” Titus replied brusquely. His eyes were upon Logistilla, and he did not spare Gregor a glance.

“Because he was a couch potato!” Mephisto confided conspiratorially. “She doesn’t think much of lovers who only exercise their channel-surfing finger.”

“Lover?” Gregor repeated. He made a face as if the word tasted bad to him. “Titus, why would Mephisto refer to you as our sister’s lover?”

“Now, Gregor,” Theo began, stepping forward.

“Off with you, Theo.” Gregor shoved him away. “If I need your help, I’ll ask for it.”

“Uh-oh. He’s reverted to Old Gregor, hasn’t he?” Erasmus murmured to Mephisto. “I hope it’s a temporary change, like calling up Shazam or something. I was getting to like the new Gregor.”

“You and me both!” Mephisto responded. “Old Gregor can be a royal pain in the patooshie!”

Gregor stalked forward, but Titus did not spare him a glance.

“I have no time for your theatrics, Little Brother,” Titus growled. “Saving Logistilla is more important than your moral qualms. I have already explained myself to the others. Logistilla turned me into a bear because she was disappointed with my performance as her husband. Apparently, she wanted a more active man. Though I recall her turning several husbands into toads or boars for the crime of being too active, in one way or another.”

“Husband?” That caught Gregor up short. “You
married
our sister?”

“You have a problem with that?” Titus stood and glared down. He towered above Gregor. “Historically, there are precedents for marriage between brothers and sisters. The gods did it. The Egyptian pharaohs.”

“Pagans,” Gregor spat.

The two men glared at each other. The rest of us backed away, except for Theo, who stood lightly upon his feet, ready to dive in, if necessary.

But what could Theo do? He could not threaten his brothers with his staff. Like an atomic bomb, the
Staff of Devastation
was of little use as a weapon of deterrent when dealing with one’s own. True, Theo was a decent fighter, but he was out of shape, and the others had both height and breadth over him.

If Titus got his hands on Gregor, any fight would be over. On the other hand, Gregor was faster and meaner. He might try maneuvers from which Titus would never think to protect himself.

The two of them circled each other. Titus loomed like a Scottish giant, clad in his highland jacket and tartan kilt with a lacy jabot collar at his throat. Gregor moved lithely, his splendid crimson robes and half cape swirling about him. The chamber grew entirely silent, except for their footsteps and the
swoosh
of kilt and robe. Around his neck, Ulysses the Snake hissed.

The tension in the room made my skin crawl. My mouth had gone dry, but I felt as if I dared not move even to swallow.

“Enough!” Theo snapped.

Theo looked at Mephisto. Mephisto looked at Caliban, who was even brawnier than Titus. Caliban cracked his knuckles and stepped forward, ready to knock heads.

Gregor and Titus ignored him, their eyes locked on each other. Titus’s big meaty hands slowly closed into fists. His arm drew back. Caliban stepped forward, grinning.

This was about to turn into an all-out brawl.

With a bellow, Gregor struck Titus with a right cross, taking the big man by surprise. Titus’s head snapped back, but he recovered quickly. He waded forward, shaking the blood from his mouth and grinning. Gregor backpedaled quickly, throwing out jabs at Titus’s face and chest, but Titus merely raised his massive arms, and the blows bounced off the huge muscles of his shoulders and arms like tennis balls off the side of a tank.