Prospero in Hell (44 page)

Oh. Of course, it was not the loss of my virtue that caused this unexpected scrutiny, but the return of my jet black locks.

Mumbling something about Erasmus, I collected the scraps of my dignity and greeted Titus’s sons, whom he immediately brought over to meet me. The elder one, the bookworm with the glasses, was Teleron. The younger one, the nine-year-old, was Typhon. As they returned to their corner, it struck me that I would always be just another brunette aunt to these nephews. They would never know the calm, level-headed woman with silvery hair whom I saw in my mind’s eye. Nor could I ask Erasmus to put it back. Erasmus’s staff could only age my hair, making it colorless and fragile. In order to achieve my former lustrous silver-white color, I would have to bathe that aged hair in Water of Life—a luxury I would never again be able to afford.

Only then did I realize: We were all together! All of us, except for Father, were in one room. It had been nearly a century since that happened and that had not included Typhon and Teleron, of course. I wondered if it would ever happen again.

“So, you’ve come to join us in our misery,” mocked Erasmus, without getting up. I heard the slur of his words, but still my mind balked, hesitating to
come to the conclusion that he might be drunk. I could not recall the last time I had seen Erasmus drunk. Mephisto? Yes. Ulysses and Titus? Certainly. Even Theo. But, Erasmus? He had been drunk as often as I, which was to say, hardly ever. Usually, he preferred keeping his wits about him.

No wonder no one was organizing a rescue for Father. When I had thought “someone would be doing something,” I now realized that what I had really meant was I thought Erasmus would be doing something. Much as I hated him, I had to admit, he was by far the most organized and self-motivated of my siblings.

“What are you doing?” I cried, perhaps more stridently than was necessary.

“Awaiting the bitter end.” Erasmus waved a hand at the bottle. “Care to join us? I would get you a glass, but you know where they are, and I don’t. Come, Sister, drink and be merry, for on the morrow, we all shall be dead.

“Well, maybe not on the morrow,” he continued. “But, soon enough. Ironic paradox we’re in. If we conserve Water and take it less often, we grow weaker and slower. On the other hand, if we don’t conserve it, it will soon be gone. Then we follow in the footsteps of good Theo, here, becoming prey to no end of maladies. Either way, we’re screwed.”

Raising his glass, he recited:

I that in health was and gladness

Am troublit now with great sickness

And feblit with informity:

Timor mortis conturbat me

Our pleasance here is all vainglory,

This false world is but transitory,

The flesh is bruckle, the fiend is slee:

Timor mortis conturbat me

The state of man does change and vary,

Now sound, now sick, now blithe, now sary,

Now dans and merry, now like to die,

Timor mortis conturbat me

“Enough. We have years to discuss this matter,” I snapped. “We need to make plans to rescue Father.”

Erasmus scowled, “What do you want us to do? Go spit upon the fires of Hell and hope our saliva puts out the flames? I suppose we could sit back and watch the hands of the clock move until the hour of his predicted death. We could use my antique grandfather clock. Oh, wait, no—destroyed by bears.”

I crossed to the middle of the room, closer to Erasmus and Theo. “Father recently made himself a staff. It has a tree, just like the trees in the Grove of Books. Couldn’t we use that to summon him back, the way we summoned Ulysses?”

“Ah, and the demons have conveniently left Father’s staff in his hands, just so we can use it to retrieve him. Good thinking, Miranda. That’s brilliant. Any other bright ideas? Perhaps, if we asked the demons nicely, they’d let us buy our father back. Maybe we could offer to install modern air-conditioning. I hear it’s hot down where they are.”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on her,” Theo began sternly. Then his voice faltered, his face going red, as he was called upon to put into words exactly why Erasmus should go easy on me.

Erasmus sneered and raised his glass, paraphrasing
The Tempest
. “O, for those idyllic days, Miranda, when “
more to know did never meddle with thy thoughts.
”

From his seat by the piano, Caliban replied. “She came to learn that the magician Prospero was more than
the master of a full poor cell and her no greater father
.”

“O bravo!” Logistilla threw Caliban a come-hither look. “He can even duel in Shakespeare!”

Titus gave Caliban a long, dark look.

I stood there at a loss, staring at my siblings. What had happened to the Family Prospero? Once, nothing had been able to withstand us. Now, we could not even organize the rescue of our own father.

I had been so certain that, if we ever got back together, we would again be able to overcome any obstacle. Was it just Father who had held us together? Were we worthless without him, mere dogs without a master? Puppets with no string to guide them?

Were we fated to fade away, as Abaddon had predicted?

“Look, I admit it’s a long shot,” I said, “but what if Father does have his staff, and we don’t even try?”

“No good,” called Mephisto, from where he sat near the hearth. “It’s the
nature of the
Staff of Transportation
to travel. Most staffs would be much harder to summon. What’s Daddy’s staff do?”

“It’s called the
Staff of Eternity.
He wanted to use it to resurrect—” I began.

“ ’Nuff said,” interrupted Mephisto. “Let’s try it!”

When everyone else just stared at him, Mephisto continued, “That’s what we’re trying to do, isn’t it, get someone out of Hell? It resurrected that Eli Thompson guy. Why not Daddy?”

“He’s not dead,” murmured Ulysses, discarding a card.

“So? He’s in Hell, almost the same thing,” Mephisto responded. “Only, I better warn you. It’s going to take more than a wee drop of Water to convince Mr. Swift-Guy-Psychopomp to go to Hell and back. And there’ll be no chance of a two-for-one this time! You all ready to spend the wet?”

“We have to spend it whether he finds Father or not, don’t we?” asked Erasmus. He sighed. “I don’t see we have a choice… unless someone is going to suggest we abandon Father in order to keep the Water to ourselves? Anyone? Do I see any hands for being the ingrate who suggests we abandon our
Pater Familias?
”

The chamber was silent except for the fluting of the wind and the
whirrr
noise of Titus’s son, the human airplane.

“No? Good. “Then, we are all in.” Erasmus again raised his glass. “At least, we’ve established we are all overly dutiful children willing to die, and thus endanger all of mankind, rather than let our old Daddykins down. That out of the way, what do we need to do, Mephisto?”

“Same as last time. Wait for dark. Do the spell. Where is this tree?” asked Mephisto.

“In the Wintergarden,” I said.

“You mean in the one at Daddy’s house? Right next to the Faery Glade? Ouch!” exclaimed Mephisto. Then, he shrugged cheerfully. “Could be worse. It could be
outside
the Wintergarden, in the Glade! Let’s gather our stuff, teleport there, and check it out.”

“No need,” Mab came walking into the music room. He pulled a baggy containing sawdust and wood chips from one of the many pockets of his trench coat. “This is from the dogwood in the Wintergarden. Sent one of my men down there after you mentioned it, Ma’am. One of the perquisites of us spirit types, easier for us to move through that house than you humans. I think there’s enough here to cast the spell. What do you think, Mr. Theo?”

Mab tossed the evidence bag to Theo, who hefted it on his palm and nodded.

“This should do,” he said.

“Then, it’s decided,” Mephisto declared cheerfully. “We do the spell here, tonight.”

“Might as well linger at the scene of the crime, letting everyone know where we are,” muttered Erasmus. “Maybe demons can rape my other sister this time.”

A silence followed, interrupted only by the rise and fall of a hundred windy flutes.

“That was uncalled for,” Cornelius remonstrated gently. He turned to the rest of us. “Perhaps there is a seed of truth to the taunts of the Angel of the Bottomless Pit. If all the remaining Water of Life were given to one of us, that one could live another five hundred years. By then, Father’s work might be complete and might be able to continue without our guiding hand.”

“Ah, but which one, Good Brother?” slurred Erasmus. “Which one? Funny isn’t it, Miranda? After your recent protestation about how it was Father who decided who lived and who died, the decision is now in your hands, after all. You have the Water, and if Father is gone, you will have to decide who gets it.”

The irony of his comments only made the truth more painful. How could I make any decision now, with neither Father nor Eurynome to guide me?

Theo spoke, his voice gruff and low. “I am willing to forgo my share. I have been expecting to die for some time now. And while I would embrace life again, if the situation warranted, I am ready to let it go, if that is the more noble course.”

“Theo!” I whispered. “No!”

Cornelius spoke softly, his face turned half away from us. “I as well. Over the years, I have grown accustomed to the darkness, and perhaps, fear its coming less than the rest of you. I will not run from its cold embrace.”

His sentiments shocked me. I had expected him to fight greedily for his share to the end. Apparently, they surprised Erasmus as well; when he spoke, he sounded as shaken as I had felt when Theo made his offer.

“Cornelius! How extraordinarily noble of you,” Erasmus said. “I fear I lack your aplomb. I want to live!”

“It’s in God’s hands now,” Gregor said quietly. “Let us leave it there. If He wants us here, we shall remain. Otherwise, we shall depart.”

Ulysses looked up, a brace of diamonds in his hand. “Say, here, I have an idea. The Elven Royal Court occasionally offers Water of Life as a reward for daring quests.”

“Use our staves to try to beat the Elven knights errant to their quarry?” said Theo speculatively. “Interesting idea. We may be able to accomplish feats elves could not normally perform.”

“Perhaps,” Ulysses shrugged, “but, why go to the flowers when you can go to the bees, I always say? Let’s steal the Water directly from the Royal Court. They must have buckets of the stuff, or they couldn’t offer it to their knights.”

“Don’t mess with elves!” Mephisto warned. “They’re bad juju.”

“Isn’t that the kind of thinking that got you into this mess?” asked Logistilla, without looking up from her cards.

“Not at all,” replied Ulysses blithely. “Curiosity is what did me in. I asked my staff to take me to the first place it had ever been, and I found myself in Hell.”

“Just that. You arrived in Hell, and they jumped you?” asked Erasmus.

“Isn’t that enough? Well, I guess it would have helped if I hadn’t stopped to nick that—”

“You stole something from a Lord of Hell?” croaked Theo.

“I admit now it was a mistake,” Ulysses said, fanning his cards.

“Geez, didn’t you learn anything from that experience?” asked Mephisto, of all people.

“Sure,” said Ulysses. “ I learned not to steal from Lords of Hell.”

“When you hear ‘elves’ think ‘Lords of Hell,’ ” Mab said glumly.

“What about you, Mephisto?” asked Erasmus. “What’s your stance on ‘family water use’?”

Mephsito shrugged and went on strumming the lute.

“Don’t you have an opinion?”

Mephisto shook his head. “Nope, doesn’t matter to me. I came to grips with this immortality thing long ago. We can’t save everyone. That’s just the way it is. It took Miranda a year and a day to get the Water of Life. Even if she had turned around and gone back immediately, with no rest after that grueling trip, she couldn’t have gotten enough water to save everybody on earth. So, I learned to stop mourning those who could not be saved. Besides, if we all lived on Earth forever, who would go to Heaven?”

“What about the current issue? Don’t you want a say in who in the family gets the Water from this day forth?” pushed Erasmus.

“Whatever happens, happens.” Mephisto put down the lute and leaned his cheek on his right hand. He smiled at Erasmus and gestured lightly with his other hand. “Look at it from my point of view, Brother. I’m a madman with half a mind. Most of the time I can’t remember where I left my wallet, or where I slept last night. What kind of a life would I have if I worried about the future? Besides, it’s a moot point. The decision is Miranda’s.”

“Not entirely,” said Cornelius. “Miranda may decide to keep doling the Water out equally. This does not keep the rest of us from agreeing to redistribute it among ourselves.”