Prospero in Hell (36 page)

We made our way into the repair shop and pushed Mephisto up onto the workbench, where he sat amidst lathes, scraps of wood, piano strings, and sharping bars while Mab and I found three usable chairs. The small room smelled of wood oil and damp stone. As I helped Mephisto down onto a three-legged stool, Mab knelt and sniffed the sawdust by the foot of the workbench, grunting noncommittally.

Joining us, Mab said, “Okay, put on the blasted hat, or we’ll hold you down and shove it on that empty head of yours.”

“If my head is empty, where do I keep the rabbit brain you keep talking about, hmm?”

“Rabbits have far more brains than you do, punk. Now put on the hat!”

“No.” Mephisto shook his head stubbornly and threw the hat down onto the wood chips.

I took a different tack. “Have it your way. I’ll go get Erasmus and Titus.
I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear all about your Mephistopheles, Prince of Hell, routine. Or perhaps, I should get Cornelius and his staff?”

“Shhhh!” Mephisto held his finger up to his lips and looked furtively about. “Quiet about the Rince-pay of Ell-hay! What if someone hears you? How did you find out about that, anyway?” He peered at me suspiciously.

“You showed us,” I stated.

“Oh,” he blinked, then shrugged. “Guess I had my reasons. Okay, give me the hat.”

Mab picked up and brushed off the hat. He peered inside, pointing to a band of overlapping pieces of some kind of horn, which wrapped around the inside of the hat. “Horse hoof,” he muttered. “Wonder what that’s for?”

Mephisto looked at it thoughtfully and then tapped his staff on the ground.

I began to imagine the straw and wood shavings were a cat, a white cat with brindle spots. After a moment, I could imagine it very clearly, as if the cat were really here. Only, unlike the way Mephisto’s staff usually worked, no cat appeared. Or at least, my eyes could not see it. Yet, every time I glanced at the spot beside Mephisto’s stool, I received a distinct impression of such a cat.

A soft high-pitched voice spoke out of the air. “My name is Schrödinger. I am your familiar. You are Mephistopheles Prospero, son of the great magician Lucretius Prospero, once Duke of Milan. You are his eldest son and heir. You have asked me to remind you of this because you have damaged your memory in order to escape a great curse. You brought this curse upon yourself through the use of demonic powers you cleverly obtained. You must keep the existence of these powers a secret from your brothers, lest they kill you. You cannot see me because I have been struck by a car and am now a ghost. Nonetheless, I am present and can answer your questions and do your bidding.”

“By Setebos and Titania!” muttered Mab. “Poor thing.”

“Ah! Someone else is present!” I imagined the cat’s green eyes glancing from Mab to me, straining as if it had trouble seeing into our realm. “How… unfortunate. I apologize for any secrets I have unintentionally spilled.”

“Schrödinger, Santa gave me a hat that restores my memory. Miranda wants me to put it on and tell her things. Should I do it?” Mephisto asked.

The ghostly cat spoke. “Do not don the hat. If you recall the particulars of the situation that led you to your current condition, a dire fate will befall
you. Leave the room. If your sister will promise not to repeat what she learns, I will answer her questions. You may tell her that Tybalt vouches for her.”

“I promise,” I said, amused that Schrödinger was willing to trust me based on the good word of my familiar.

“I don’t like this,” Mab began. “It’s bad luck to consort with ghosts. I think we should get Harebrain to…” but Mephisto was already jumping down from his stool.

“Oh, goody, I’m off the hook,” he declared, dropping the hat into my lap. The feathers brushed my face, tickling my nose. “Here, Miranda, you’d better keep this. I might need it some time.” Then, he went charging back into the music room shouting, “Yoo hoo! Who’s up for a game of Scrabble? Titus? Wake up, you sleepyhead. Your snoring is disturbing the dead. I know! I just saw a ghost stirring in the little room over there.”

The door swung shut, blocking out the rest of Mephisto’s inane banter. I turned to the cat, or more accurately, I turned toward where the cat was not, but where I continued to believe that it sat licking its paw.

“What happened to Mephisto?” I asked.

“Mortals are not so different from cats,” Schrödinger began. “When we want something, we hunt it down. When you want something, you hunt it down. In this way, we are alike. Cats are wise enough not to hunt down beasts too large for them to catch. Your brother, I fear, does not share this wisdom.”

“How so?” I asked.

“The Faery Queen danced before him, and he was fool enough to consider himself her equal. He called upon his secret art to summon her and bind her, but she proved too subtle for him.”

The Faery Queen again! I recalled the night, back in 1627, when we came upon the elves dancing before their howe, a night of floating sparks and pine boughs and dancing among the stars. Looking back, my recollection of that night was often misty, but three things I remember clearly: Father dancing with Queen Maeve, Mephisto entertaining the High Lords of the Elven Council with juggling and acrobatic tricks after playing his violin for the queen, and myself dancing with Astreus, who laughed at the mockery of his fellows as he swept me off the earth to twirl amidst the star-lit sky. I closed my eyes a moment, remembering the fresh windy smell of him and the eerie unearthly way I felt whenever he stood close to me, both that night and, more recently, at Father Christmas’s.

But my thoughts were straying from the topic. Schrödinger was speaking of the Elven Queen, not the Lord of the Winds. I recalled the statue Mephisto had carved of Queen Maeve on his great mural. He had certainly captured her beauty, even if he shared it with the demon queen. An odd chill ran down my back as I recalled the “M.” in Father’s journal. Could that stand for Maeve? Was Father mixed up in Mephisto’s madness, too? Oh, I prayed not!

“What is this secret art?” asked Mab.

The ghostly cat replied, “Mephisto knows the art by which the object of one’s desire might be summoned and compelled to come. It is the same art Prospero practices, but Prospero draws his power from a Heavenly source. Not so Mephisto.”

With a shiver, I recalled the spell Mephisto had spoken of, the very same one we hoped to use tonight to summon Ulysses, the one he claimed Father used to summon my mother.

Aloud, I asked, “So, he summoned up Queen Maeve, and she cursed him for his impudence? No wonder she was annoyed to see him at her table over Christmas!”

“You race ahead. A good cat pauses and lets the knowledge approach, waiting until it has grown close before springing,” said the ghostly cat. I received a distinct impression of it washing its hind leg.

“I’m sorry. Please continue,” I said.

“The Faery Queen grew terrible with wrath. Cowed, yet still besotted, Mephisto begged to be allowed to do her some boon. The Faery Queen asked if he were truly Mephisto the Beast Tamer, from whom, it was said, no beast could escape. Mephisto acknowledged he was. The Faery Queen then demanded that in return for his transgression, he vow to bring her whatever part she might request of whatever beast she might name, and, furthermore, that should he not do so within seven years, he would forgo his freedom forever, becoming her faithful and adoring slave.”

“Tell me he said, ‘No!’ ” prayed Mab.

The ghostly cat continued. “Believing she would request a feather from a phoenix, or perhaps the hoof of a hippogriff, Mephisto agreed and swore the oath upon the River Styx.”

“No!” Mab cried, hitting his fists against his head. “Never offer a supernatural creature a boon! Especially an elf! I can see why you might offer a boon to, say, an Angel, but an elf! Was he crazy? No offense, Ma’am but I’m
beginning to think your brother was a harebrain even before he lost his wits.”

“No use in crying about it now, Mab,” I replied. “It happened over three hundred years ago.”

“I can see what is coming,” Mab continued. “He swears, and she asked him to bring her the blood of the Sun or the heart of the Beast called Fear, or some such feat no man could achieve.”

“You, too, have pounced too soon, child of the air,” said the ghostly cat. “An ancient law allows for the annulment of oaths that cannot be performed. Only knaves and imbeciles, ignorant of this law, fall prey to such contrivances. No, the Faery Queen’s decree was nothing so innocent.” The cat paused, and I received the distinct impression of green eyes staring directly at me.

The ghostly cat said softly, “She commanded him to bring her the head of the Unicorn.”

“Merciful Mother of God!” I whispered in fifteenth-century Italian.

“By unicorn… do you mean a unicorn, or the Unicorn?” Mab asked, his face white as a sheet.

“The Faery Queen demanded the head of Eurynome, the White Lady of Grace.”

Shocked, I could make no sense of Schrödinger’s story. Then, I remembered Mephisto’s wall.

“Queen Maeve is Lilith in disguise! Eurynome’s ancient enemy!”

“At last, Prospero’s daughter, you have pounced and captured. By this foul request was her true nature revealed, for Queen Maeve is naught but another face of Lilith, the Queen of Air and Darkness. Mephisto believes she slew the true Faery Queen by foul treachery.”

“You mean old Titania was murdered?” Mab gasped, as shocked as I had ever seen him. “I thought she retired to go live in Arcadia, or maybe the Elysian Fields! Geesh! Poor Titania!”

“So the poets were right! The Queen of the Elves really is the Queen of Air and Darkness!” I said.

Mab colored. “Sorry, I mocked ’em, Ma’am.”

“No wonder he owned a chameleon cloak!” I exclaimed.

Schrödinger nodded. “The Queen of Air and Darkness gave it to him so that he could hunt the Unicorn. At first, Mephistopheles scorned it and would have nothing to do with it. Later, however, he forgot why he had
objected so strongly and wore it so that he could slip about unseen. When in public, he hid it beneath a poncho. Still later, he put it down somewhere and could not remember where it might be.”

“He pawned it,” Mab replied bluntly, “up near Theo’s.”

“Ah,” answered the cat, “Yes. That makes sense.”

Slowly, I said, “We know Lilith, the Queen of Demons, has reason to hate Eurynome, whom Lilith feels stole mankind from the demons. She must have been the one who sponsored the Unicorn Hunters to begin with. This explains what the dark angel at Theo’s meant by ‘Prospero’s blood has already condoned our work.’ He meant the cloak belonged to Mephisto, who was of Prospero’s line, and thus Prospero’s authority could not be used to unmake the cloak.”

The ghostly cat nodded graciously. “Have you more questions? The daylight tires me.”

“Just one,” said Mab. “How did the Harebrain become a Prince of Hell?”

Schrödinger licked her paw. “Of that, I am not permitted to speak.”

“Was he tithed by the elves? Is that how it happened?”

“Tithed?” the cat asked archly. “No. He was a Hellish lord before he summoned the Elf Queen. Had he not been, he would not have had the authority to cast the summoning spell.”

“I have two questions,” I said. My mouth seemed dry and the words came haltingly. “Was my father involved with this somehow?”

The cat shook its ghost-head. “To the best of my knowledge, Great Prospero knows no more of this than you did this morning.”

That was encouraging. It gave me the courage to ask the next question. “And what of Lord Astreus?” My heart beat unnaturally fast as I spoke the elf lord’s name. I awaited the cat’s answer with both eagerness and dread. “How does he fit into this?”

“Lord Astreus made a compact with Mephistopheles, the details of which were never made known to me. The Lord of the Winds was present when Mephisto summoned Queen Maeve and when he swore the fateful oath.”

“Did Lord Astreus put him up to it?” demanded Mab. “Were he and the Queen working together to trap Mephisto?”

“I know not,” the ghostly cat replied. “I know only that Lord Astreus brought Mephisto a decanter of water from the River Lethe, which Mephisto drank in order to forget his oath and, thus, avoid his appointed fate as Lilith’s eternal slave. Should Mephisto’s memory return, and he remember what he
has sworn, he will be compelled to carry out the terms of the oath. Only his forgetfulness protects him now.”

“Thank you, Schrödinger,” I said. “You have been a great help.”

The ghostly cat, its voice growing weak as it faded away, replied, “Of course.”