Prospero Regained (35 page)

What an irritating man Erasmus was! No matter how much evidence mounted that I was innocent, he simply refused to see it. Granted, his hatred had been enflamed by a spell, but that was over. What excuse did he have now?

Since the fateful encounter in Dis, our family had tacitly broken into two groups. Mephisto, Gregor, Theo, Mab, and I walked to one side; Erasmus, Cornelius, and Logistilla had moved to the other. Titus was walking near Logistilla, though he did not seem very happy about the whole situation. Caliban, with Ulysses on his shoulders, strolled in the middle between the two warring camps. I was not certain if he did this on purpose, at Mephisto’s urging, or if he was unaware of the tension.

“Those voices are just demons talking,” Mephisto insisted. “Servants of Paimon. Erasmus’s a pickle-head for listening to them.”

“They seemed accurate enough to me,” Erasmus said. “At least mine was accurate.”

“That just means you’re a pickle-head who listens to what demons say to you!”

“I suppose that’s a possibility.” Erasmus missed the end of his staff, and it clattered against the obsidian. He shot me a dark glance, as if I had somehow caused him to drop it. I glared back. He picked it up and asked, “What about the wings, though? Doesn’t that imply that her mother was some sort of demon? Or at least a succubus?”

“Look over there! It’s the Train to Nowhere!” Mephisto cried, pointing, obviously attempting to interrupt us before another argument started.

Only, there really was a Train to Nowhere.

To the left of the forest lay the battlefields we had crossed to reach Ulysses. On the far side, to the forest’s right, train tracks cut across the reddish earth; an engine pulling a line of cars chugged along them. The tracks continued into the distance as far as the eye could see.

Beyond the tracks rose an immense, curving structure of bridges and exits. The roads looped back upon one another like a four-dimensional figure eight. Many vehicles traveled these roads, some lengths of which were jammed with traffic. Yet, not a single stretch of highway made its way across the plains, away from these endlessly intertwined exits. Only the train left, and it apparently went to Nowhere.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing.

“The Cloverleaf from Hell!” Mephisto replied cheerfully. “And the Eternal Traffic Jam. Many people end up on that one in their nightmares.”

“People come to Hell in their dreams?” Ulysses exclaimed in disbelief.

“Nah,” Mephisto responded, “but Hell is on the far side of the Gate of False Dreams. Images from here often drift into people’s nightmares.”

Ulysses pointed at a single-file line of people stretching as far as the eye could see. “What’s that? The Endless Queue?”

“Exactly!”

Ulysses shuttered. “I’d rather be a snake then end up there! I hate waiting!”

*   *   *

THE
closer we drew to where the Mountains of Misery rose in the distance, stark and sharp against the red flaming sky, the chillier it grew. Walking beside us were the tortured dead. We drew close to one another, skirting to the left or right to avoid lone men with great loads upon their backs, bent old women walking so bowed over that they crawled along like beasts, and gangs of slaves wearing heavy iron collars linked together by a great chain. These last were driven by imps with flaming whips, who hovered above them or rode upon the back of one of their number, spurring him on with their long venomous claws.

“Slavers,” Mephisto said sadly. “Guys who sold slaves in life or who were really nasty to the ones they owned.”

“They deserve every minute of it!” Mab glowered, glaring at my flute.

“Look! The Train to Nowhere!” Mephisto pointed again, apparently hoping to forestall another argument. Yet, we all looked again. The sight was still equally dreary.

“Why is Gregor carrying Titus’s staff?” Logistilla asked. Cornelius, who had not known this was the case, cocked his head, curious. Theo and Caliban looked on in interest as well.

“We swapped,” Titus said.

“A shift of burdens, so to speak,” Gregor replied serenely in his husky voice.

Logistilla hugged her staff tightly. “A revolting idea! I mean, I do admire Cornelius’s staff, and Erasmus’s is nice, too. But I like mine better.”

The others, I noticed, were holding their staffs close as well, as if horrified at the thought of possibly losing them. I felt only sympathy. I certainly would not have wanted to give up my staff. It made me admire Gregor’s gesture to Titus all the more.

Though I could not help wonder whether there was a reason why the only two who seemed willing to consider changing staffs were the two who had been forced to take a vacation from them in recent years. It was hard to imagine that I would feel differently about my staff if parted with it for a time, but I had been wrong about other things. Of course, mine did not have a demon.

“By the way, Caliban,” Logistilla said as she stepped up close beside him and rested her hand admiringly upon his huge bicep, “who is your father? Shakespeare is mute on that matter.”

Caliban glanced down at Logistilla who gave him a sultry look. He blushed, Titus growled, and Gregor grimaced.

“Don’t know,” Caliban admitted.

Erasmus was a few steps ahead of them. “You never asked your mother?”

“It would never have come up.” Caliban looked chagrined. “Back when she was alive I thought Master Prospero was my father. She used to go on about how he had fancied her the first few times he summoned her. Then, she’d rail against him, cursing him for his fickleness.”

“First few times? He summoned her more than once?” Mab had come over to join us; now he drew his damaged older notebook from his pocket and flipped through it quickly, circling something with his Space Pen.

“Oh yes,” stated Caliban. “She told me he had a statue, much like the figures on Mephisto’s staff. When he tapped it, she would appear.”

“Huh!” Mab scratched his six o’clock shadow.

I thought of the two wooden dolls in my room on Prospero’s Island, the ones I had played with as a child. Could one of them be the figurine that summoned Sycorax?

“Oh, do come!” Ulysses exclaimed from Caliban’s shoulders. “It’s obvious who this big brute’s father is! Just look at his chin. It’s practically the same as Gregor’s, only larger.”

Caliban moved to stand beside Gregor and jutted out his chin. Gregor stuck out his bearded jaw as well. To our astonishment, Ulysses was right! In fact, I recalled noticing the similarity between him and Gregor the first time I saw Caliban.

Erasmus laughed. “You mean that bratty child of Sycorax’s Father complained about in his journal was Caliban?”

“Why else would Father have kept him alive all these years?” Ulysses asked. “It’s a wonder he didn’t give him a staff, too.”

Caliban and Mephisto exchanged surreptitious glances, smirking.

“You mean he’s family? Oh, phooey!” Logistilla threw up her hands. “All the best ones are.” She stepped beside Titus and tucked her arm through his. “Well, if I must love a brother, I might as well stick with the one I already have.” Titus put an arm around her, his grin practically splitting his face in two. Ahead of them, Gregor’s face contorted with disgust.

Caliban, for his part, looked enormously pleased. “You mean I’ve got a family?” He gave Mephisto a friendly punch. “Brother!”

“Brother!” Mephisto shouted back, giving him a hug.

“Whoa!” cried Ulysses, who swayed precariously atop Caliban’s shoulders.

Cornelius, who was being helped along by Erasmus, asked, “But wasn’t Caliban older than Miranda? Didn’t he come to the Island with Sycorax?”

Caliban shook his head. “Not that I remember. When I was little, I thought Master Prospero was my father, and Miranda was my older sister. He even let me call him Father until … well…” He glanced at me, then looked down, ashamed.

I thought back, using the picture of my little self from Father’s journal as a reference to sift through the mists of time to the original memories. I said slowly, “I remember when Caliban was smaller than me. It must have been Shakespeare who introduced the other idea.”

“Most likely,” Ulysses snickered. “Father never would have told the Bard the truth about Caliban’s origins. Too embarrassing.”

“Does that make Caliban our Fearless Leader?” Logistilla asked. “If he’s the oldest, I mean?”

Caliban looked at Mephisto, who shrugged. Gregor shook his head. “Right now, we are only speculating. Unless Father confirms our theory, Mephisto is still the eldest.”

Erasmus stared at me speculatively. “I see now how you arrived at the conclusion that the Queen of Air and Darkness might be your mother.”

“And how was that, Brother?” Cornelius tilted his head, listening.

“If Caliban is Sycorax’s child, then Sycorax was not the first creature Father summoned—the one he told Mephisto had given him Miranda,” Erasmus explained. “So, who could Miranda’s mother be?

“In his journal,” Erasmus continued, “Father speaks a great deal about ‘M,’ whom he refers to as his ‘fair queen.’ My guess is that, if it was not Sycorax, then this mysterious benefactor of his was probably the first being Father ever summoned. I have long suspected the identity of the fair queen ‘M,’ and while Father had never confirmed my suspicions, he has not contradicted me, either. Q.E.D., the first being Father ever summoned, and thus, Miranda’s mother, must have been the elf queen, Maeve!”

“O dastardly Daddy, stealing my elf queen!” Mephisto cried. “No wonder he warned me away from her. Oh … wait.” He cocked his head, tapping his forehead thoughtfully. “Didn’t she turn out to be someone icky?”

“Lilith, in fact,” purred Erasmus.

Mephisto stuck his fingers in his ears. “I didn’t hear that! I’m not listening!”

“Maeve is Lillith? When did we learn this?” Cornelius asked, baffled. Logistilla and Ulysses were staring in amazement as well.

“Um…” Erasmus glanced at Mephisto. “Long story. Unwise to explain now. When we get home, I’ll tell you whatever parts you haven’t worked out for yourself.”

Theo leaned forward. He held his staff, his knuckles white. “Maybe it wasn’t Father who cast a spell on Miranda…”

Erasmus finished the thought with a chuckle. “… maybe it was her mother.”

“Disturbing,” I said slowly, “but unlikely, as Eurynome would certainly have destroyed any spell cast by her great enemy.”

“Course, we don’t know for sure that ‘M’ is Maeve,” Mab muttered as he scribbled something down in his notebook. “Pays to keep track of what is fact and what is speculation.”

“Oh, I think we can be pretty sure,” Erasmus said. “I’ve referred to ‘M’ as Queen Maeve numerous times, and Father has never corrected me.”

“Is that so?” Mab drawled. “Funny, Miss Miranda referred to her mother as Lady Portia, numerous times, and Mr. Prospero never corrected her, either.”

Erasmus chuckled. “Touché.”

“I say,” Ulysses leaned over sideways from Caliban’s shoulder and spoke softly to Cornelius. “You once told me that Father’s journals said he consecrated Miranda to her Lady to restrain some kind of baser nature. Now that she’s no longer in the Unicorn’s service, is that baser nature going to reassert itself?”

Even Ulysses knew about this?
I was torn between shame and annoyance.

“We are hoping not,” Cornelius replied as he tapped his way along the obsidian road with his black-wrapped cane, “but nobody knows. According to Erasmus, Father reported in his journal that she was a terror. Or … wait … was that Caliban?”

“Sorry about that.” Caliban hung his head sheepishly.

The last of my resentment toward Caliban dissolved, and I felt as fondly toward him as I did toward Gregor or Titus. True, he had once attacked me, but only out of ignorant brutish lust, not deliberately and maliciously, like Erasmus. And he certainly seemed to have changed in the intervening five hundred and some odd years. I had been glad that I spent the extra Water to save him and return his strength when I heard how he had saved Theo. Now I was doubly glad. To have discovered later that I abandoned a family member in need … it would have been unthinkable!

But it still left the matter of my mother.

My parentage was changing so quickly it was as if I was being hit in the face by the revolving door of heritage. So, Sycorax was not my mother! And yet, Caliban was still my brother, and Father’s son! No wonder Father had kept him alive! One of the great mysteries of my youth, why Father did not want to kill Caliban after he attempted to rape me, was finally solved. It was not in Father’s nature to slay his own son.

If Sycorax was not my mother, however, my chances of escaping the fate of being the daughter of the Queen of Air and Darkness looked bleak indeed. And what about Ulysses’s fear that, without the influence of my Lady, I might begin to revert to some kind of demonic monster? This concept had been introduced before, but it seemed all the more disturbing if I was the daughter of one of the Seven Rulers of Hell! The notion was sobering, and I resolved to watch my thoughts and actions more carefully.

“So, you’re family!” Ulysses gave Caliban’s head a pat. “That means Miranda would have won, if Mephisto hadn’t butted into the vote.”

“Who would have you voted for?” Erasmus glanced up at Ulysses from where he held Cornelius’s arm.

“Oh, come! That is hardly sportingly!” Ulysses objected.

“Seriously,” Erasmus’s eyes narrowed.

“Neither of you! That’s for sure! The two of you are the ones who got me into all this trouble!”

“That’s hardly fair,” I cried, nearly walking into a band of slavers. The leader recoiled from my gown. “We may have driven you away from Prospero, Inc., but we hardly forced you to swear an oath to Abaddon.”

“Our fault? How so?” asked Erasmus.

“It was just after the Guvnor gave me my staff,” Ulysses replied, “and I had come up with this brill idea of finding out if it could go any places we hadn’t visited. I didn’t know the staffs contained demons from Hell! I thought they came from Fairyland or some such.

“Anyway, I showed up at the family lodgings to see if I could get a couple of sibs to come along, just in case there was a spot of aggro … you know, trouble,” he added when he saw we were unable to follow his modern British slang. “But, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Erasmus and Miranda were going at it, bickering about who knows what, as they always did. Wouldn’t even give me the time of day. So, I went on my own, met Abaddon, and the rest is history.”