“You’re helping me in order to pay back an old debt to your sister?”
A flicker of what might have been pain appeared on her face. It vanished as she shook her head. “I’m not a fair maiden in one of your Italian poems,” she said. “I’m an Immortal, which is to say, a survivor. You’re suspicious of me because I happened to be in the castle when you wandered in the warrens. I was there partly because the Moon Lady’s Darkling had taken too long in arriving. There were other reasons, but since those don’t concern you, I’ll keep them to myself. Why do I help you? The answer is simple. I fear Erasmo. He is a true acolyte of Old Father Night. That grim one loves death. Look at the destruction his servant plans. Although…I think Old Father Night may have miscalculated with your friend.”
“Meaning what?” I asked.
“That I believe Erasmo plans to supplant the Old Ones. I think he strives for power over them. Others have tried that in the past, those with unbridled ambition and deep cunning. That’s another reason I’m helping you. These upheavals are always dangerous to Immortals.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re trying to thwart the Moon Lady,” I said.
“But it does. Erasmo and his master are worse. Yet she’s bad enough, if given half a chance. If we’re not careful, she’ll supplant them once they’re gone, and she’ll raise a dark kingdom devoted to her worship. She might forgive my past rebellion, but she might not. I don’t care to give her the chance to decide.”
“Why would the moon priestess allow you in the castle then?”
“Are you sure you were a Perugian prince?” she asked. “You Italians are noted for your deceit and backstabbing, for making an alliance one day and selling out to someone stronger the next. The Moon Lady accepts my aid because she hates Old Father Night more than she hates me.”
With a fingernail, I pried at the rough table edge. “Then you seek to return our world to what it was before the plague.”
“No. That’s impossible, although it would be ideal. I think your Italian cities were about to enter a golden age, say, in another hundred years. All the elements were in place.” She shrugged. “As I’ve said before, I think some of the Old Ones may have become insane. The plague and now this trumpet…mass death unleashes terrible forces. The world is awash in sorcery as I suspect it might have been in the beginning. There is the possibility that this chaos might unravel everything.”
I thought about the dead world, the comets that blazed across the heavens and hit with shattering force. Erasmo took us on that road so he could forge…whatever his ambitions had conceived. He was like a man who whipped a team of horses, with his wagon careening along the edge of a cliff. He could plunge over the cliff at any moment, but he could also arrive at his destination. In this instance, his wagon was our world.
“Did you cause me to sleep longer in the swamp than the Moon Lady had planned?” I asked.
Lorelei laid down another card. “I wish I knew how to do that. It would take great cleverness.”
I noticed she didn’t say no or yes. But I left it at that, deciding she would lie about it if she had.
***
The nights passed and my hurts healed. The eye took the longest. Without Lorelei and in my impatience, I would have lain in the moon’s rays all night. I began to wonder if Lorelei told the truth about that. Maybe she wanted me to linger here for reasons of her own.
To test my suspicion, I remained under the moon longer that night, long enough that I felt the Moon Lady’s tug. I hurried indoors and refused to take out my coin, much as a siren urge tickled my curiosity.
Lorelei reappeared two nights later, the closest to angry I’d seen her.
“I doubted you,” I said. We were in the dungeon again, and it made me feel like a vampire.
Lorelei reflected on my words and her anger dwindled. “I fled because I’m unsure how much the Moon Lady can sense while communing with you. I certainly don’t want her to know I’m here. If you do that again, I’ll leave for good.”
“Do you wish to come with me to the Tower of the East?”
She laughed. “Only a fool would join the Darkling on one of his quests. He has a way of surviving dangers, while those around him die hideously.”
“You make ‘Darkling’ sound like a title.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Is Orlando Furioso truly the famous paladin from Charlemagne’s court?”
“Do you doubt it?” she asked.
“Why are his eyes red?”
“Ask him next time you meet.”
“Is he immortal?”
“He’s extremely dangerous, if that’s what you’re asking.” She completed her sets, gathered and slid the cards into a small box, which she secreted in a pouch. “I think Erasmo knows you’re alive.”
“How would he-”
“While you’ve healed, powerful sorcery has occurred. I have my ways of knowing, and no, I won’t tell you them. Maybe as troubling as the sorcery, calls have gone out. Rumors tell of Anaximander marching for the Tower of the East.”
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“A particularly vile servant of Old Father Night,” she said, “who is commonly associated with the Forgotten Ones. But on a more personal note for you, there is word Erasmo has raised Lord Cencio.”
“Who?”
“You slew him, I believe.”
“I’m not aware-”
“He was an altered man. He led the pack that hunted you.”
“Signor Fangs for Teeth?” I asked.
Lorelei frowned.
“There was a noble who had wolf-like fangs,” I said, “but otherwise seemed normal.”
“Lord Cencio wore a hat with a crow’s feather.”
“That’s him,” I said. And it was my turn to frown. “What do you mean, Erasmo ‘raised him’?”
“The term is sufficiently descriptive,” she said. “It’s a rare occurrence, because it’s a difficult spell, but sometimes sorcerers who serve Old Father Night hold a grim threat over their minions. Namely, failure sometimes means returning as a dead-alive. Such creatures are driven with infernal desperation to perform their task. That being so, you should leave Perugia tomorrow.”
“Are you suggesting I should have burned the man’s body?”
“You couldn’t have known this would happen,” she said.
My left eye only saw things in a blur, although my Darkling strength had almost returned. I lacked my former speed, although Lorelei had assured me it too would return.
“You seem to be well informed,” I said. “Is my wife alive?”
“I wish I knew.”
“What about my children?”
Lorelei spread her hands, shrugged.
“Where would Erasmo keep them?”
“I can’t say for certain,” she said, with an evasive edge.
“Can’t or won’t?” I asked.
“A little suspicion is reasonable. But surely by now you should trust me.”
“Knowledge is power,” I said. “How can I know that anything you’ve told me is true?”
She stiffened. “Your bitterness is understandable, signor. But I think-”
My hands clenched. I wanted to throttle Erasmo, smash his head against paving. He had my wife! And for all I knew, Laura thought he was me.
“You must leave Perugia,” Lorelei said softly.
I forced my hands open. “You suggested earlier that these sorcerers and Old Ones act like Italians. If I were to go to the priestess of the Moon, would she help me against Erasmo?”
Lorelei gave me a shrewd look. “The priestess is brave, if foolhardy. An army of desperate soldiers gathers on the edge of Venice’s old swamp. It threatens Erasmo and surely diverts him to some degree. That helps you. You must beware of her, however. She is the Moon Lady’s servant, although she holds some articles dear to Darklings of the past. You must do as you think best.”
I touched my bad eye. Tomorrow night, I would begin.
— 22-
I stood on a crag of the northern slope of the Apennines Mountains. Pine trees spread out below me. Even farther north was the vast Po Valley.