Prospero Regained (34 page)

“No, you dope!” Mephisto exclaimed. From above, a voice that sounded like Mephisto’s replied:
No, you dope. I’m the family savior
.

“Bit of a savior complex, perhaps, but no guilt.” Erasmus spun nearly sliding on the polished wooden floor and pointed his finger at Theo, who stood nearest to Mephisto. “Are you the traitor?”

“Don’t be an ass.” Theo repeated the words Erasmus had just spoken to Cornelius. Above, his voice said:
I have failed my family. I allowed the demons to trick me and sway me from my duty. What greater treachery could there be?

Erasmus snorted. “Right! Next?”

One by one, Erasmus called upon each of the others, Caliban and Mab included, and Mab questioned Erasmus as well. While one or two voice-overs were embarrassing, no one revealed treachery. Erasmus and Mab both grilled Gregor, questioning him about the comment we had heard overhead about him killing us all.

Gregor’s face reddened, but he replied fiercely. “I would never harm any of you! Those thoughts of mine you heard—they were the sort a man knows better than to listen to. When I was in constant prayer, back in my cell, I had rid myself of such thoughts. Here in the heart of the Inferno, it is harder to discipline one’s mind…”

“We know,” Mephisto replied cheerfully. “Didn’t you notice all these evil thoughts went away when Titus did his silence thing? That means they aren’t even our thoughts, They are evil thoughts sent by bad demons. For instance, I’m sure Calvin would never think about picking his nose, were it not for bad demon thoughts,” Mephisto said, using Caliban’s modern name. He slapped his Bully Boy on the back, and Caliban’s face grew rather red. Then, Mephisto paused and tilted his head. “But I really would like some cheese.”

Overhead, Gregor’s real voice cried:
What if they don’t believe me? What if they think I am the traitor and lock me up again?
and Mephisto’s said dreamily:
Maybe with some salami
.

Erasmus finished with the others and turned to me, an unpleasant gleam in his dark eyes. From his air of suppressed glee, I realized this was the moment he had been anticipating. My brother truly believed I was the traitor, and he thought he was about to prove it to everyone.

“Finally, the truth, Dear Sister!” Overhead, Erasmus’s voice chortled:
At last!

“It’s not me,” I replied. “Why would I cast a spell on myself?” Above us, my voice said:
Hurry! We’ve got to hurry, or Father will be dead! Unless Father is the traitor!

I blushed to have the others overhear me doubting Father. Theo and Titus both frowned severely at me, and Logistilla gasped in outrage at the very thought. Erasmus merely grinned wolfishly and stepped closer. As he opened his mouth, however, all sound fled.

Frowning with great annoyance, Erasmus gestured to Gregor to cut the silence again. This time, Gregor shook his head, indicating again that we should all gather together by Ulysses, and tapping his left breast. It took me a moment to realize that he was making a gesture to indicate a pocket watch. He was trying to say that we had to get moving and save Father.

Relieved, I stepped obediently toward Ulysses. Erasmus was far from pleased. He stomped forward, frowning angrily. Then, he changed direction and charged at me.

Striking my stomach with his head, he threw me over his shoulder, then, as I gasped, he sprinted across the chamber until we were outside the effect of the
Staff of Silence.
Throwing me to the smoldering floor, he grabbed me by the throat. “Here, of all places, you cannot lie! For God’s sake! Tell me the truth! What are you?” Above him, his voice-over cried out plaintively:
All this time, they’ve been taken in by her, believed her lies. Finally, we shall learn the truth!

Coughing, I tried to tear his hands from my throat, but he had the same advantages of extraordinary strength as I did, and he was the stronger of us. The heat of the floor scalded my back. I kicked at Erasmus, trying to lift as much of my body off the wood planks as possible; however, he quickly knelt atop me, pinning my legs. Above us, to my dismay, my voice cried out pathetically:
Erasmus, can’t you see that I am innocent? I am nothing but a pawn to whom Father told lies. Stop hurting me!

“No!” he cried. “You lied about Ferdinand. You’ve kept the Water from us. You killed Maria. You chortled, laughing as you lauded your victories over us!”

The same words were repeated in the air above his head.

My vision was growing dark around the edges. I struggled, desperate for air, pulling on my brother’s hands. My voice-over cried:

I am innocent! I shall die having failed my father … having failed my Lady … and never having known love.

“Stop!” Theo charged toward Erasmus like a knight on horseback. Mephisto’s face bobbed over Theo’s shoulder, his staff swinging about as if ready to strike. Before they arrived, however, Mab appeared and hit Erasmus over the head with his lead pipe. The great chamber resounded with the loud
whack.

Erasmus released me and grabbed his head, yowling. Theo tackled him, knocking him hard against the floor. Theo knelt on Erasmus’s chest, shouting, “Stop hurting her! Can’t you see she’s just a victim?”

Above, Theo’s voice-over cried:
If he kills her, after she saved me, brought me back to life … Oh, please live, Miranda! Please live!

“Ow! For Heaven’s sake! I’m not going to kill her!” Erasmus shouted back. “I just want to know the truth!”

Reluctantly, Theo released Erasmus and stood, glaring down at him. His face ashen, Erasmus held his head where Mab had struck him and rocked back and forth, his features contorted with pain.

“Ouch! That hurts!”

“Serves you right, bothering Miss Miranda like that when she’s never done anything to you,” Mab growled.

Erasmus scooted backward, away from Theo, and rose to his feet. “But that’s just it! She has harmed me. She’s harming us all. She’s lying! She’s a fake like … like those false wings she’s been parading about,” Erasmus spat, turning on me as I rose shakily to my feet, my hands pressed against my throbbing throat. “Prancing about as if you’re an angel, when we all know you’re nothing but a witch’s bastard! See!”

Overhead, his voice cried:
She’s lying. She has to be. I will prove it!

Crossing the distance between us again in two large steps, Erasmus grabbed my shoulder and spun me around so that my back was to my family. As Theo bear-hugged him about the middle and dragged him away, Erasmus unlatched the enchanted clasp that released the fastenings on my enchanted dress. My gown fell open in back, baring my shoulders before my family and the population of the Exchange.

Theo swung Erasmus around, knocking the latter’s head into the nearest circular booth. My gown began sliding off my shoulders. Crossing my arms to keep it from slipping further, I noticed that no wisps of emerald light sprang from the loose flaps of enchanted cloth now. Opening the fastening must have broken the spell that had produced the wings.

Overhead my voice exclaimed:
I hope they reappear when I close my gown. They were useful!

At the same time, Erasmus’s voice-over cried shrilly:
No! I don’t believe it! How can this be?

To my left, Theo had forced Erasmus to his knees, his hands gripping Erasmus’s shoulders. But he was no longer looking at Erasmus. Instead, he stared at me. Erasmus stared at me, too, ignoring the trickle of blood running down his temple into his eye. Caliban, Mephisto, and Mab stood about them, ready to jump in if necessary. Yet, they were gawking at me, as well. Farther away, the rest of my family also stared in astonishment.

The floor had been very hot. Perhaps my skin had blistered, and they were aghast at the horror of it? I grew faint with shame. How mortifying that I—who would not even swim without a proper bathing costume—was now so flagrantly exposed.

No man, save Father, has ever seen my back. I shall die of shame!

Bracing myself, I twisted, resolved to see what held their attention so raptly. And then, I, too, gaped in wonder.

Wings of emerald light flared behind me as brightly as ever. Only they did not come from my enchanted gown. They sprang directly from my shoulder blades.

Overhead, Erasmus’s voice cried out:
This cannot be! Can I have been wrong all this time? But your mother was an evil witch! Why else would Father have put you under a spell?

Like the traitor Erasmus accused me to be, the overhead voice that sounded so deceptively like my own betrayed me. It blurted out my secret fear. It did not do it meekly or with shame, as I might, but in a most blatant and arrogant fashion:
Fool! That wretched witch was never my mother. My mother is the Queen of Air and Darkness!

Oh, no.
My heart stopped beating. My chest froze. I opened my mouth, gasping for air that did not come.

Erasmus’s jaw dropped open so far that I feared it had become unhinged. He looked at me with a mixture of astonishment and triumph. Theo took a stumbling step back. Caliban, who had just arrived, went pale. Even Mab’s face scrunched into an incredulous grimace.

From down the street came the tromping of demon feet.

“Okay, let’s skidaddle! We can discuss this later.” Mephisto yanked Ulysses toward me and grabbed my shoulder. “Everyone hold on!”

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

Sycorax’s Child

“Snakes!”

This time, the serpents were waiting for us. We arrived in a flash of light back at the foothills of the Mountains of Misery. The rock we had marked with the
Staff of Transportation
had been far from the snakes the first two times. The locals had caught on to where we appeared and disappeared, however, and had slithered over to wait for us.

They swarmed over our feet, biting us mercilessly. Caliban and Mephisto wore boots. Ulysses still sat on Caliban’s shoulders. Mab made quick use of his trusty pipe to send snakes flying in all directions. Cornelius, who had missed all the recent family drama because he had been within the effect of the
Staff of Silence,
and Logistilla, who had immensely enjoyed the spectacle of Erasmus attacking me, both were in such good moods that—true to Malagigi’s predictions—the snake bites could not affect them.

The rest of us were not so lucky.

I found myself slithering along in the dark on my very long stomach. Approaching a crack of light, I peeked out from the folds of my gown in time to see someone who resembled me skipping away over the ramparts, displaying far more of my naked body than merely the shoulders. I feared I might shrivel up from sheer embarrassment and blow away like the dust on the Plain of Wasted Lives. Luckily, most of my brothers were too busy hissing and slithering to notice, but Mephisto had the gall to wolf-whistle.

My burning desire to wreak revenge by slithering up his boot and biting his knee was thwarted by the realization that I would then look like Mephisto—most likely, if I understood the system, a naked Mephisto—a fate I fervently wished to avoid.

To my delight, however, I noticed the wings of emerald light had stayed with me. They now protruded from my sinuous length. This cheered me so much that I found the magnanimity to forgive the impertinence of my wolf-whistling brother.

Soon, Erasmus, Theo, Gregor, Titus, and I slid along on our tummies—a disorienting sensation—while pale greenish light from the globe at the top of the
Staff of Transmogrification
glowed all around us. Next, hopping toads crowded the rocks, and I found myself towering above my brethren in Titus’s bulky form, displaying more of Titus than I would ever care to see. A tense moment followed, during which I looked like naked Erasmus, and he looked like me, before Logistilla restored everyone to their proper shape.

Then, I was myself, naked, in a field of toads.

*   *   *

“WHOSE
idea was it to come back to the snake pit?” Logistilla cried, when we were again dressed and out of Snakeland. “Of course, there would be snakes there!”

We were following the crystal ball along a raised causeway of black obsidian that Mephisto had identified as the Paths of Pride. To either side yawned an enormous chasm from which noxious vapors leaked. Ahead, the Paths led to the foothills and on to the rocky slopes of the Mountains of Misery. Behind, a great plain stretched away as far as the eye could see, broken in places by the forbidding forest we had passed through on our way to get Logistilla.

“Wasn’t a matter of ideas,” Ulysses replied from Caliban’s shoulders. He now wore Gregor’s black turtleneck and slacks, which he managed to make look stylish—despite their being several sizes too big for him—and Gregor was back in his crimson cardinal’s robes. However, Ulysses still did not have any shoes. “It was either walk out of Dis—through the gorgons and all—or use the staff. And, of places the staff has memorized, this is the closest to our pater.” Leaning precariously to one side, he reached past Caliban’s shoulders and tapped his staff against a rock, memorizing this location. Straightening, he addressed me. “So, your mum is some demon, then?”

“No!” I cried, exasperated. “I have no idea who my mother is! Father’s journal and what he told Mephisto both point to Sycorax. But Malagigi thought my mother was something … more supernatural, like a mermaid or a sylph.…” I drew the line at explaining Malagigi’s reasoning. “Then, as I was crawling through the bog to rescue Titus, it occurred to me that Lilith was a possibility. But it was just a passing thought! And I am definitely not happy about it, much less proud!”

“That’s what she says now.” Erasmus flipped his staff in the air, catching it by the end and tossing it again. I noticed that he had used his staff to fix his face, yet again. His temples had gone more gray. “When we cannot hear the truth.”

My fists clenched, and I considered asking Theo to punch him again. Or, better yet, I could stride over and punch him myself! Now that would be satisfying. What a shame I had broken his nose accidentally when I was half-conscious. I strained, thinking back, but could find no memory of having heard the
crunch.
Instead, I replayed for myself several times my memory of the moment when Theo punched him in the lava tube, as well as Theo slamming Erasmus’s head into the bronze booth in Dis.