The Stone Light (13 page)

“Lord Light?” Dario’s voice was quiet, as if this news didn’t really surprise him. Then he nodded slowly. “The Devil, that is.”

“That remains to be proven,” said Serafin. “No one has
ever seen Lord Light.” But he was only trying to make it sound better, he knew that.

“And Arcimboldo obeyed him?” Dario asked.

A lone gust of wind brushed Serafin’s face and made him shiver. Again he looked up at the night sky. “He didn’t only make the mirrors for him. He also took Merle and Junipa into his house on Lord Light’s orders.”

“But … ,” Dario began, then shook his head. He’d never liked the two girls, but he didn’t go so far as to blame them. “Tell the rest,” he begged.

“There isn’t more to tell. Junipa was blind, you know that, and Arcimboldo implanted the mirror eyes at Lord Light’s request.”

“Those damned eyes,” whispered Dario. “They’re creepy. Like ice. As if a cold wind were blowing out of them.” He stopped, and then after a moment he added, “Why? What do Hell or Lord Light get out of it if Junipa can see again?”

“No idea.” Serafin noted the doubt on Dario’s face. But for some reason he didn’t want to try to explain about the power the mirror eyes gave Junipa. “Arcimboldo only did what they commissioned him to do. To save the workshop and also you apprentices. He was afraid he’d have to send you back to the orphanage if he refused Lord Light’s commissions. He was only concerned about you.” Serafin hesitated a moment, then he said, “And he was glad to be able to help Junipa. He said she was so happy to finally be able to see.”

“And why are we here now?”

“Talamar, Lord Light’s errand boy, has demanded that Arcimboldo surrender Junipa to him. But I think he knew Arcimboldo would refuse to do it. He gave him a deadline. And therefore we have to get your master, Junipa, and Eft to safety before—”

“Before this Talamar comes for the girl,” Dario ended the sentence. “And punishes Arcimboldo for his disobedience.”

“Then you’re still with me?” Serafin hadn’t forgotten what happened when Dario went after him with a knife that time in the mirror workshop. Then, Dario had used Junipa as a shield. On the other hand, Serafin felt that he was dealing with a different Dario today, one who was straighter with other people—and with himself.

“Sure.” Dario drew his saber, a decisive but also a slightly useless gesture. “No matter who we have to deal with. And if the Pharaoh and Lord Light are inside there toasting each other, we’ll just show them both where to go.”

Serafin grinned and started moving. Together they covered the last few yards to the workshop. The sign over the door,
ARCIMBOLDO’S GLASS FOR THE GODS,
appeared even more unreal than ever. On this night the gods were farther away from Venice than ever before.

A soft thumping sounded as the mirror maker’s empty boat struck the canal wall behind them, making Serafin
and Dario jump. Something had disturbed the calm water. Perhaps only the wind.

Still no lions in the sky.

The front door was open. Dario cast a surprised look at Serafin, but he merely shrugged. It was only after they’d cautiously entered that they saw the reason: The door lock was broken—in fact, it was smashed, splintered like the wood of the oak door, which had been thrown against the wall with such force that the plaster was missing in several places.

On the alert, Dario peered into the darkness.

Serafin whispered only one word: “Talamar.”

He didn’t know what made him so sure. It could just as well have been mummy soldiers who’d forced their way into the house. But he sensed the breath of Lord Light’s slave like a bad smell that fouled the air. Like something that singed the hairs on the back of his neck and made all the roots of his teeth suddenly start aching. The presence of something bad through and through, perhaps even more evil than the power that had sent it here.

“Talamar,” he said once more, louder this time, more grimly.

Then he ran, despite Dario’s warning, despite even the darkness that seethed in the entry hall like a black brew in a witch’s kettle. He tore up the stairs, turned off at the second floor, and recoiled when he saw hectic movements flit over the walls to the right and left of him. But it was only
his own image that flitted through a tremendous number of mirrors on the walls everywhere.

Dario was running directly behind him when a deafening shriek sounded. Dario increased his pace, almost pulling past Serafin.

Who had screamed? Man, woman, or girl? Or maybe something else entirely, not in torment but in shrill, blazing triumph.

Through the corridors, from all directions at once, came the whisper: “The wish is fulfilled, the magic worked, the agreement kept.”

The boys turned the corner, straight into the corridor that led to the high double doors of the workshop. Arcimboldo’s shop floor resembled the laboratory of an alchemist in olden days rather than the room of a craftsman. His magic mirrors consisted of silvered glass, magic, and the essence of the Flowing Queen.

But the caustic vapors that met them now had nothing to do with alchemical substances or magic. They were the breath of damnation, of the black pestilence Talamar. Serafin knew it, felt it with every nerve, with every fiber. His senses cried alarm. His mind screamed to him to turn around.

But he ran on, raised his saber high, opened his mouth in a scream of rage and helplessness—and flew through the open door into the laboratory, rushed through clouds of acrid smoke and sour steam, stumbled, and came to a stop, hardly able to breathe. And
saw.

Eft lay in a corner, maybe dead, maybe only unconscious. In the pallid fog that filled the room, it wasn’t possible to see if she was still breathing. She wore no mask, but her face was turned away.

Something was moving in the mist, like a giant spider with four legs. Limbs bent out of line, as if someone had put a rag doll together wrong. A body whose belly faced up, and an upside-down face, the pointed chin facing the top, the malicious eyes at the bottom. Like a human child making a bridge; and yet far removed from any humanity.

The messenger from Hell was pulling something behind him with one hand, a motionless bundle. A body.

Junipa.

Serafin hesitated only a moment to make sure that Dario saw the same thing he did, then dove through the caustic mist at Talamar so fast that Hell’s messenger could scarcely react. Instead of avoiding him, the creature dropped Junipa, raised an arm—in a distorted movement that had nothing in common with anything earthly—and turned away the saber blade with his naked skin, hard as stone, as impervious as the horn shell of an insect. The blade rebounded with a sickening thudding sound, and Serafin was almost thrown to the ground by his own momentum. He caught himself at the last moment, took two steps back, and then stood, legs astride, ready for the next exchange of blows.

A shrill laugh rang from the creature’s twisted mouth; his eyes searched, explored, discovered the second opponent.

Dario had learned from Serafin’s mistake. Instead of engaging Talamar on a straight line, he made a step toward the beast, whirled around, sprang to the right, then to the left, and finally leaped clear over his antagonist in an acrobatic jump, turned in the air, and using both hands, drove the saber into the body of Hell’s courier from above.

Talamar groaned as the tip scratched his skin. He shook himself as if it were an insect sting, spit out a string of staccato sounds, then merely wiped the blade aside. The tip had penetrated scarcely a finger’s breadth, too little to weaken him or seriously wound him at all. Dario snatched the saber back before Talamar could grab it, landed on both feet, staggered briefly, then retrieved his balance and called out to Serafin something that was swallowed up in the creature’s angry bellowing.

But Serafin understood it anyway.

Dario now was standing on Talamar’s right side, while Serafin was still on his left. They could take the messenger from Hell in a pincer movement if they managed skillfully. If they dealt fast enough.

Talamar was quite capable of speaking the language of the Venetians—Serafin had heard it himself—but the sounds that he now uttered hurt Serafin’s ears. It was as if the sounds were something living, sent out to weaken Talamar’s opponents and destroy their concentration.

Serafin forced himself to be calm. His eyes sought the motionless figure of Junipa, half buried under Talamar’s body, and he believed he saw a metallic flash, a reflection in her eyes. They were open. She was watching him. And yet Junipa could not move, as if Talamar had laid a spell on her. Her limbs were rigid, her muscles frozen. But she was breathing, he now saw very clearly. She was alive. And that was what counted.

Dario let out a whistle. Serafin looked up, nodded to his companion. And both attacked at the same time, letting the sabers whirl and rain down on Talamar’s armored skin.

Steel bounced on horn. Without success.

Talamar screamed again, not in pain, but in rage. Then he went on the counterattack.

He had recognized Dario as the most dangerous foe, and so he favored him with his first thrust. The claws on Talamar’s fingers, no shorter than a dagger blade and just as sharp, flashed forth and back, darting, whirling blurs, and then Dario cried out, staggered back, and bumped against a workbench. With great presence of mind he threw himself backward, although losing his saber in the process, slithered across the top of the bench, and plunged to cover behind it. Just in time, for Talamar’s claws drove behind him, imprinting five deep scars in the wood.

Serafin used the moment while the creature was distracted. He didn’t know how to penetrate Talamar’s
armored skin, but his instinct told him that he should direct his attacks to the creature’s head. His saber cut through the gray mist, drove the vapors away from Talamar’s features, and for the first time uncovered his entire face. In one tiny instant, almost frozen in time, Serafin saw the steel thorn vine that ran like a band over Talamar’s eyes; saw the individual tendril that had loosened itself from the others and led diagonally across the creature’s mouth.

Then the blade of the saber struck Talamar’s face—and bounced off again.

The scream that now came from the creature’s throat sounded agonized and uncontrolled, and for the first time Serafin had the feeling of being dangerous to Talamar in spite of everything, yes, even being able to kill him.

Instead of retreating and recovering strength for a new attack, Serafin pursued him immediately, thrust the saber forward, felt how he struck resistance—and saw the blade shatter into a thousand splinters.

Talamar hauled back and dealt a blow that would have killed Serafin had it been better aimed. But though the claws only grazed him, they dug deep scratches into his right cheek. Serafin staggered and clattered to the floor. He fell so hard that it knocked the wind out of him, and when his vision cleared again, Talamar was gone.

Junipa had also vanished.

“Serafin?”

He looked up and saw Dario stand up behind the workbench, gather his saber from the floor, and then stare incredulously at the five deep gouges in the top of the workbench. It didn’t take much imagination to visualize what would have been left of him if the blow had actually struck him.

“Here!” Serafin cried, but it sounded like an inarticulate wail, not like a word.

“Where is he?” Dario staggered over to him. He was supporting himself on his saber like a crutch. His face was contorted in pain and a bruise like an exotic plant bloomed under his left eye.

“Gone.”

“Where?”

Serafin picked himself up before Dario reached him. He was still holding the hilt of the saber in his hand. He stared at it in disbelief, and then carelessly threw it aside. The metal hilt clattered on the wooden floorboards, skittered a ways away, and was then taken up by a hand, which pulled it abruptly from the billows of mist like a hungry animal.

“Eft!” Serafin bent forward and helped the woman to her feet. “I thought—”

She didn’t let him finish. “Where’s Arcimboldo?”

Serafin looked around, saw only Dario, who shrugged, and then he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Eft pushed his hands away and struggled forward, her
upper body bent over, and dragged herself through the caustic fog, which was burning in Serafin’s lungs like liquid fire.

“He must … be here … somewhere.”

Serafin and Dario again exchanged looks; then they fanned out and searched the interior of the workshop.

After a short while, they were certain that neither Talamar and Junipa nor Arcimboldo were there. Instead they stumbled on an opening in the floor, with charred edges, jagged, like a star that a child might have drawn on the floor with unskilled fingers.

For a moment, Serafin thought that the hole led directly to Hell.

But after his eyes grew used to the darkness, he saw at the bottom of the opening the floor of the story below. He would have jumped down then and there, but Eft held him back.

“Leave it,” she said. “He’s gone.”

“And Junipa?”

“He took her with him.”

“We have to stop him!”

She shook her head. “He’s fast. He could be anywhere by now.”

“But …” Serafin fell silent. Whatever he intended to say was wiped away at one blow. They had failed. Talamar would take Junipa to Lord Light. The girl was lost.

“Master!”
Dario’s voice sounded muffled through the
mist, probably from a room nearby, but even at a distance, the despair in his call lost nothing of its intensity.

Serafin ran, but Eft was even faster. She had a cut on her head, with blood running down to the corners of her mouth, just in front of her ears. Her broad mermaid’s mouth was open a little, and Serafin saw the shine of the rows of sharp teeth inside. But he had no time to think about that.

He followed her through the mist, through an open door.

Arcimboldo had kept his magic mirrors in the storeroom. Most were gone—he’d handed them over to Talamar on the last delivery. Only a few still hung on their hooks or leaned against the wall, work ordered by his few Venetian customers.

The old man was lying facedown on the floor. His left arm was stretched out close to his body, unnaturally turned, as if it had been broken behind his back or dislocated. His right hand clutched a hammer. Nearby lay the remains of a mirror, jagged shards that he’d obviously struck out of the frame himself.