The Blackhope Enigma (25 page)

Marin brought his face close to Sunni’s ear. “Are you certain? You are willing to risk this?” He squeezed her shoulder and said in a low whisper, “Do you trust me?”

Trembling, she breathed out, “Yes.”

With an almost imperceptible nod of his head, Marin let her go.

“I will draw the girl there.” The apprentice pointed at a blank area of the wall, away from the Raven and the other apprentices. He opened his satchel and rummaged about for a stick of charcoal.

“Very good,” purred Angus.

Marin stood Sunni in the position he wanted. Dean scampered close to them and said, “I’m right here, Sun.”

Angus heaved Blaise nearer so they could watch Marin draw. “We’re about to watch a miracle happen.”

Sunni saw the fear in her friend’s eyes once more and said, “It’s all right, Blaise.”

Marin stared at her, his charcoal stick poised to begin. He was studying every detail, from the width of her nose to the length of her foot, and it made her shake.

His hand began flying across the wall, furiously sketching and rubbing out, cursing in Italian. From the corners of her eyes, Sunni watched herself take shape, scarcely breathing.

When the drawing was finished, Marin began murmuring something in a monotone voice. He drew strange swirly symbols above Sunni’s head, then dropped his hand to his side.

Sunni’s fingertips dissolved first and then her hands. It was as if she were being dunked into a vat of invisible ink.

Angus exploded with gleeful laughter.

The sound was odd, muffled, as if she were under the sea. She tried to scream, but nothing came out.

Her feet prickled with pins and needles. The burning spread up her legs, and she could not move. When her eyes finally focused, Sunni was in a strange room, warm with golden light and reeking of pungent oils. Corvo and the two boys were hastening toward her, their startled faces full of suspicion, their hands reaching out to seize her.

She opened her mouth and wailed, “Help us!”

Suddenly all Sunni could see was streaks of color and light as the room dissolved again before her eyes. The three figures faded, and everything went gray.

Sunni was only in the mural for a matter of seconds. Her feet reappeared on the floor of the round room, quickly followed by the rest of her body. Complete once again, she staggered back against the mural.

“It didn’t work!” Angus shoved Blaise aside and lunged at Marin. “You filthy —”

The apprentice kicked out and sneered, “Bellini, you and all your ancestors are dogs!”

“My ancestors? What are you babbling about? You snide little toe-rag!” bellowed Angus, circling Marin, the dagger brandished before him.

“That devil Maffeo!” Marin roared. “He ruined my life!”

He leaped at Angus, fists flying, sending the dagger clattering across the room. The startled painter grappled with Marin, attempting to wrestle him to the floor. “You’re crazy!”

The others hurled themselves at the pair, trying to haul the painter off Marin.

“Villain!” shouted Marin.

All at once, Angus released the apprentice and lunged at Sunni, crooking a thick arm around her neck.

“Stay away!” he cried. “Or Sunshine here gets it.” He backed toward the mural, dragging Sunni with him.

Suddenly, a hand clamped onto Angus’s shoulder. He froze, then turned his head slowly to see who had appeared behind him. It was one of the apprentices from the mural.

“What the —?” gasped Angus as the other apprentice materialized, seizing his other arm. He released his grip on Sunni, then flailed wildly, trying to throw the boys off. Blaise and Dean rushed forward, and together the four of them pinned Angus to the ground in a messy scuffle.

Panting and sore, Sunni looked over toward Marin. His face was white, streaming with tears, and his shoulders trembled. His eyes were fixed on something behind them.

“What is it, Marin?” Sunni panted.

“Signore,”
he croaked. Gesticulating wildly, he began chattering in Italian.

A dark figure moved softly across the room and regarded Marin with crow-black eyes.

“We will speak English, Marin,” said Fausto Corvo, gesturing toward the heap of bodies on the floor. “For our guests. Now, what in heaven’s name is happening, my son?”

“Master,” said Marin. “Can this be? I cannot believe I have finally found you. . . .”

“One thing at a time,” replied Corvo. He examined his apprentice’s portrait of Sunni. Then he smudged his forefinger across the symbols above it.

“This is how you attempted to transport the girl, Marin?” He knit his brows together. “Small wonder it did not work in my mural! This is the wrong formula. Like pouring oil into water — they will not mesh.”

“I know, master. But I thought she might appear for long enough to attract your attention.”

“And she did,” said Corvo. “For how long have you been able to transport beings in this way?”

Marin lowered his eyes. “A — a long time. I have been capturing your enemies. They are all here in my satchel. I will show you —”

“Not now.” Corvo rubbed the magical symbols out with the palm of his hand, then turned to the captive on the ground. Angus looked up at him in wonder.

“Maffeo Bellini,” Corvo said with weary distaste. “After so many years.”

“I am
Angus
Bellini, sir,” the painter said. “It is an honor to meet you. Please — release me, I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“This descendant of Maffeo has hurt and killed in pursuit of your magical paintings,” Marin said with feeling. “I present him for your judgment.” He hung his head. “And myself also.”

“I will hear your story later, Marin,” said Corvo. “And who are these children?”

“Innocents who wandered into Arcadia and are trying to return home to their world. They are Bellini’s victims, too.”

“I don’t have any victims!” Angus protested. “Is it a crime to be interested in your work, Signor Corvo? I only sought the paintings because I wanted to share your genius with the world!”

“Indeed?” asked Corvo. “And why do you think it is that I have given up Venice — my friends, my family, everything I love — and hidden myself away for so many years? The world must not learn the secrets of my work — it has been my greatest challenge to keep them hidden for this long.”

“I beg you. Let me go.”

“There is but one remedy,” said the Raven.

He pulled a piece of parchment from under his short black cloak and cradled it in the crook of one arm. He gave Angus a pitying look and, while muttering something, began scribbling on the parchment with a piece of charcoal.

A flash of realization crossed Angus’s face. “Get off me!” he howled, but the apprentices held him rigid.

Sunni and Dean huddled together nearby. Blaise stood by their side, his mouth slightly ajar as he watched the magician’s hand.

“He — he’s going to trap Angus,” stammered Dean. “That’s just what Marin nearly did to me.”

As he drew, Corvo crooned in a low voice as if he were soothing Angus with a lullaby. He sketched and corrected, hardly taking his eyes from his subject. At last he held the drawing out and turned it to show his three apprentices. “Have I captured Bellini’s likeness?”

Marin, Dolphin, and Zorzi smiled at their master.

Angus panted, “No, no!”

Then Corvo showed the drawing to Sunni, Dean, and Blaise. He had caught Angus’s hard eyes and sneering mouth, the gouges in his cheek and the tangle of his hair.

“That’s amazing, sir,” Blaise managed to whisper.

Sunni gulped. “It is.”

Dean said nothing, daunted by the fierce look in the magician’s eyes.

Corvo nodded and scrawled something across the top of the drawing to finish. “So you want my secrets, Bellini? Impossible!”

He flung the drawing across the room.

Angus started to blur around the edges, his face fading and his body as indistinct as a wisp of fog. Last to vanish were his outraged eyes, as the parchment floated to the ground.

The three apprentices got to their feet and hugged one another.

The Raven retrieved the drawing and held it up for them to see. Angus was squirming and shouting to be released, his stringy hair flying around.

Dean retched, his face drained and damp with sweat.

Sunni’s bottom lip trembled. “Are you going to draw us?”

“No, I am not.” Corvo wondered at these three staring, white-faced children. “But I do not understand. Are you sorry I trapped this man? My apprentice says he is your enemy, yet you are upset at his fate.”

“He was our enemy,” said Blaise quietly. “But I don’t think he deserves a living death inside a drawing.”

“He — he can’t even move in there,” Sunni murmured.

The Raven gestured to Dean. “Do you agree?”

“Yeah.” Dean wiped his face. “That could have been me. I don’t wish it on anybody else.”

Corvo stroked his beard. “Then what would you have me do with Signor Bellini?”

“Put him on a really faraway island,” ventured Dean, “where he can’t do anything bad.”

The magician’s eyes lit up. He turned Angus’s drawing over to the blank side, drew an island, and held it up. “A new home for Bellini. What will he do there?”

“Be a farmer,” Dean said.

“Ah!” Corvo chuckled. “Very good. I will give him two pigs and some chickens.” He drew these onto the island.

“Shall I give him a wife?”

“Please don’t,” said Sunni. “I’d feel really sorry for her!”

“Wait until you see the wife I will give him.” The magician’s eyes twinkled. “Then you may feel sorry for
him
.”

The apprentices burst into laughter, and the children grinned.

“No, you are right. The pigs and chickens are company enough for Bellini at the moment.” Corvo finished the sketch and bowed to the children. “I thank you.”

He whistled a lilting tune, and in a few moments a raven swooped into the room and perched itself on his shoulder. “My friend will take Bellini and his new home far out into the sea, beyond the knowledge of my sailors. There he will be released to make a life on his island.”

“We could take the drawing home with us, sir, and release him in our world,” said Sunni. “Wouldn’t that be better?”

“You do not possess such powers.” Corvo shook his head in a kindly way. “Bellini is a violent thief. It is best for him to stay with us. He will not have a bad life on his island.”

“It won’t exactly be Paris,” Blaise said to Sunni, “but at least Angus will be alive.” He looked hopefully at the magician. “And maybe someday you’ll let him come back to our world.”

Corvo shook his head and patted the raven’s feathers. “I have decided that you must close the labyrinth in Blackhope Tower when you return. It is time to bring peace to Arcadia. Will you do this for me?”

“Yes, sir. But how?” asked Blaise.

“When you leave us, continue along the path. It will take you to the top of the island —
finis terrae
, the land’s end. Find an amphitheater with a labyrinth within it. This labyrinth will take you back if you say ‘chiaroscuro’ as you walk.” Corvo smiled. “As you entered, so you will leave. And, most important, the last of you to arrive in the Mariner’s Chamber must walk that labyrinth backward from the center, repeating the password. This will close the entrance forever.”

He murmured something, and the raven took hold of Angus’s portrait in its beak. It circled their heads and then flew from the room.

“Bellini is on his way.” Corvo bowed again. “It is also time for us to take our leave and for you to return to your home.” He went to the mural where the portraits of Zorzi and Dolphin had stood like empty shells since their subjects had left them. Mumbling to himself, he drew a line of curling symbols above their heads. One by one, the two younger apprentices faded into the air and reinhabited their portraits.

“Where did you send Dolphin and Zorzi when we left Venice, master?” Marin asked in a small voice.

“Here,” said the magician. “I sent them to Sir Innes, where they would be safe until I could join them.”

“You sent me to Egypt with blank canvases.”

“You know why I had to do that, Marin.”

Marin knelt before his master. “I repent of everything, Signore. Forgive me.”

Corvo pulled his apprentice to his feet and grasped his hands. “I think you have spent long enough suffering for your sins. It is time you came home with us.”

His face twisted with emotion, Marin placed himself in front of Corvo, who found a large empty space in the mural to draw his eldest apprentice.

The magician murmured several unfamiliar words as he had before starting Angus’s portrait. Sunni, Dean, and Blaise hovered as close as they dared, to watch Corvo draw.

First he made a sweeping oval for Marin’s head, then he moved the charcoal down the wall and blocked out his body. Humming, Corvo sketched Marin’s tunic and torn sleeves, the leather satchel slung over his chest, then his breeches and flat shoes. He returned to the oval and sketched in Marin’s nose, chin, mouth, and black hair.

When he came to draw Marin’s eyes, he paused. It was all there: four hundred years of anger, regret, and loneliness. The magician saw his apprentice’s longing for peace and forgiveness. As Corvo traced the arc of the young man’s eyelids, he prayed that the angels, planets, and stars would guide his hand.

Finally, Corvo and Marin stood back from the mural and the children surrounded them.

For what seemed like an age, Marin considered the portrait his master had conjured on the wall. Then he turned to the others. “It is time for me to say good-bye. My brothers are waiting.”

“Bye, then,” said Dean. “Thanks for not killing me, trapping me, or taking me into another stupid underpainting.”

“Farewell, Dean, worst spy I have ever met.” Marin smiled, then nodded at Blaise. “Farewell, Blaise. You are a foolhardy ship’s captain, but you would make a worthy apprentice in our workshop.”

Blaise shook his head. “I’m not so sure about that. I wouldn’t want to make drawings that have the power yours do. I don’t know that I’ll even be able to look at my own drawings in the same way again.”

Marin’s eyes blazed. “I hope you will look at your drawings with joy and not distress. Do not turn away from your passion because of Angus Bellini’s fate — it was my master’s decision, not yours. If you stop drawing, you will die inside.”