The Mistress of Illusions
Page 13
“I’ve been a galley slave for a decade,” said the man. “I’ve heard of you, of course, but I’ve never seen you until today.”
“Oh?” said Raven. “And what exactly have you heard?”
“Of your heroic exploits, of course.”
“Name two,” said Raven.
Lisa leaned over and whispered softly into his ear. “Why are you tormenting this poor man?”
“Because he’s not what he claims to be,” Raven whispered backed. “I’m waiting,” he said aloud.
“Noble knight, please do not ignore my supplication,” whined the man. “I am the unfortunate Ginés de Pasamonte, whose life began badly and has gotten worse day by day.”
“And you want it to get better?” asked Raven.
“Oh, yes, noble knight!”
“Then be out of here before I get to my feet, or I’ll find out just how well this sword works.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Surely the noble knight is kidding!” he said plaintively.
“You’ve got about ten seconds to find out,” said Raven, pushing his chair back from the table.
Ginés de Pasamonte turned and fled, and was out of the tavern in something under seven seconds.
“What was that all about?” demanded Lisa.
“Surely the Mistress of Illusions knows,” said Raven.
“I’m merely a participant, a player, in this test, Eddie,” she said.
“Didn’t you recognize him?” said Raven.
“Should I have?”
“Back in our twenty-first century, he’s Gene Pastore. He owns three sports franchises around the country, and as of last April he’s serving twenty-five to life for killing his partner after he was caught robbing him.”
“You know,” said Lisa, “I do remember it. I just never paid much attention to what he looked like.”
Raven looked across the room to the door leading to what he assumed was the kitchen.
“Here’s someone who’s a lot harder to forget,” he said with the hint of a smile, as an absolutely gorgeous young woman approached them.
“Kind knight,” said the woman, “I will not take up your valuable time. But I could not let you leave without expressing my gratitude.”
“Happily accepted,” said Raven. “May I ask what it is for, and from whom it is given?”
“I am Dulcinea,” she replied. “And, against my will, I was betrothed to Ginés de Pasamonte in exchange for his canceling my father’s debt to him. But now that you have shown him to be the coward everyone always suspected he was, I feel all bonds with him have been broken.”
“Happy to have been of service,” said Raven.
“Stay well, noble knight,” she said, turning and walking back to the kitchen.
“She’s quite beautiful,” remarked Raven.
“I’m sure you’re heartbroken that she didn’t burst into song,” said Lisa. She gestured to his stout. “You going to drink the rest of that?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Then let’s be on our way,” she said.
“What the hell,” he said, getting to his feet. “How many more people can we meet in a run-down tavern?”
They walked out the door, retrieved their horses, and began heading very slowly west.
“So did I pass?” he asked after a couple of minutes.
“So far so good, I imagine,” she replied.
“It’s not over?” he said. “This test, I mean.”
“If it was, we’d be back in Manhattan.”
They rode westward for another couple of miles, then came to a stream, dismounted, and allowed their horses to slake their thirsts.
“Whoops!” said Lisa.
“Whoops?” he repeated, frowning.
“Company.”
Raven looked ahead, and saw the sun glinting off an incredibly bright figure approaching them on horseback.
“Damn!” he muttered. “That’s almost blinding.”
“It’s just the way the sun’s hitting it.”
The figure got to within one hundred yards, and suddenly Raven chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” asked Lisa. “He’s close to seven feet tall, and that’s a hell of a lance he’s carrying.”
“I just remembered the book,” said Raven. “He’s the Knight of the Mirrors. I’m supposed to see myself—this ancient, feeble old man pretending to be a knight—and the sight brings me back to sanity . . . and just about kills me in the process.”
“Halt!” cried the Knight of the Mirrors, bringing his horse to a stop when they were within ten yards.
“Greetings,” said Raven. “What can I do for you?”
“Nothing,” said the knight. “But I can do something for you.”
“Oh?”
The knight nodded his plumed head and helmet. “Come closer, Don Quixote de la Mancha.”
“You know my name,” said Raven wryly. “How comforting.”
“You think so, do you?” said the Knight of the Mirrors.
“Come closer still. I will not lay a finger—or a weapon—on you.”
“I know,” said Raven.
“Dismount, Don Quixote.”
“Happy to,” said Raven, getting off his horse.
The knight did the same, and approached Raven until they were less than three feet apart.
“It is time to learn the truth, Don Quixote. Look at the Knight of the Mirrors and tell me what you see.”
Raven stared into the brilliant reflecting armor. “Ah!” he said.
“Well?” demanded the knight.
“I need a shave,” said Raven. “I don’t suppose I could borrow a razor from you?”
The knight screamed, either in outrage or agony or both, and suddenly both he and his horse completely vanished.
“I figure I get an A-plus for that one,” said Raven to Lisa as he remounted his horse.
“Every incident prepares you for the ultimate test,” she said. “Though I will admit your prior knowledge, both of the book and the criminal, eased you through this one.”
“I’m not thrilled with the notion of being tested, especially given what I’m being tested for,” he said. “But as long as they aren’t any harder or more dangerous than these last few, I suppose things could be a lot worse.”
“Give it thirty seconds,” she said grimly. “They will be.”
And as the words left her mouth, a magnificent coal-black stallion thundered up, ridden by a huge armored man.
“Halt!” he cried. “Who goes there?”
“Enough bullshit,” muttered Raven. Aloud he said, “Eddie Raven. You got a problem with that?”
“Not as long as you and your squire pay tribute to cross my land,” came the answer.
“It’s pretty empty and pretty desolate,” said Raven. “What makes it your land?”
“Right of possession,” said the man. “Or do you plan to take it from me?”
“Not if I can avoid it,” said Raven. “Now why don’t you just let us pass in peace?”
“How would I make a living if I did not charge a tribute to those passing through my territory?”
“You got a deed to it, do you?” asked Raven, who was becoming more and more annoyed with Don Quixote’s milieu.
“Certainly not,” said the man. “I took it by the strength of my good right arm.”
“Who the hell are you anyway?” demanded Raven irritably.
“I am the Knight of the White Moon, of course,” came the answer.
“It’s more gold than white this time of year,” said Raven. “I don’t think your claim or your name would hold up in a court of law.”
“That’s it!” thundered the Knight of the White Moon. “I challenge you to a battle to the death!”
“And I claim the
right to choose the weapons we use,” said Raven.
“Done!” cried the Knight.
Raven turned to Lisa. “You heard him, right?”
Lisa, still in her Sancho Panza guise, nodded her head.
“So what shall it be, ugly knight in rusted armor?” demanded the Knight of the White Moon. “Swords? Daggers? Both?”
“Neither,” answered Raven. “I choose fisticuffs.”
The Knight frowned. “Surely you jest!”
“Am I smiling?”
“That is unacceptable!”
Raven turned to Lisa. “The moment he pulls a weapon of any kind, ride off and spread the word to anyone who will listen that the Knight of the White Moon is a liar and a coward.”
The Knight held up a hand. “Wait!” he said with a note of desperation in his voice. “I accept your terms.”
“Good,” said Raven. “The battle is over when one of the combatants cannot get up.”
The Knight nodded his head.
“Did you box in college?” asked Lisa very softly.
“Even better,” replied Raven. “I grew up on the West Side of Manhattan.”
“Don’t joke, Eddie.”
“Am I smiling?” he replied. He turned to the knight. “Are you ready?”
“In a minute,” said the knight, removing his boots.
“Good idea,” said Raven, removing his boots, his helmet, and almost all his body armor except for his steel-reinforced gauntlets.
“Ready,” said the knight, striking forward.
Raven watched him for a moment and very subtly nodded his approval. The man may or may not have possessed normal quickness under normal circumstances, but even with his boots off his body armor slowed him down considerably.
Raven danced around, jabbing, faking, ducking, and when he saw an opening he swung a steel-covered fist and clipped the knight on the chin, knocking the startled man to the ground. He was up in a few seconds, but was too slow and awkward to catch or connect with Raven, who danced skillfully around his opponent, and then landed another heavy blow to the jaw. The knight collapsed in a heap.
“Had enough?” asked Raven.
The knight looked puzzled. “This is a fight to the death.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” said Raven. “Concede right now, promise no further hostilities, and we’ll be on our way.”
The knight looked puzzled, as if he’d never heard a similar proposition.
“You mean it, Don Quixote?”
“I do.”
The knight reached out his hand. “Then take my hand in eternal friendship.”
“Happy to,” said Raven.
As he stretched his arm out, he wondered how they were going to get back to Manhattan, and how Rofocale was doing, and half a hundred other things.
What he wasn’t prepared for was what happened next.
17
“Where the hell are we?” demanded Raven.
“What does it look like?” asked Lisa.
“Cold and damp,” he replied. “Exactly the way it feels.” He turned to his left. “Can’t say much for the interior decorator. Damned place is nothing but one huge stone block after another.”
He took a deep breath through his nose. “And it smells like . . . I dunno . . . like death warmed over.”
“You’ll get used to it,” said Lisa. Then she shrugged. “Or you won’t.”
He stared at her. “You know,” he said, “about thirty seconds ago, you were a pudgy, mustachioed sidekick, and before that you were an absolutely beautiful young woman.”
“And now?” she asked.
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“An ugly hunchbacked dwarf.”
She nodded. “It goes with my name . . . or at least the name you’ll call me by while we’re in this milieu.”
“Let me guess,” said Raven. “Igor?”
She gave him a nearly toothless smile. “Right.”
“And I’m Dracula?”
“Looking like that, you’d damned well better be,” she said with another smile, neither of which did anything to humanize her ugly, misshapen face.
“Okay,” said Raven. “Don Quixote had a quest. Robin Hood had a challenge. What the hell has Dracula got?”
“I should think that would be obvious,” said Lisa.
“Maybe to the Mistress of Illusions,” said Raven. “But not to someone who’s been a vampire for less than two minutes.”
“Your job, plainly put, is to survive.”
“Alone in this castle?” he said, frowning. “Should be a piece of cake, as long as I don’t freeze to death.”
She gestured for him to walk over and join her by a window, where she pointed down at the ground. Literally hundreds of townspeople carrying torches and spears were climbing the curving path that led up to the castle.
“Oh, shit!” muttered Raven. He looked around the barren chamber. “What kind of weapons do we have?”
“Dracula needs no weapons,” said Lisa.
“Maybe Bram Stoker’s Dracula didn’t need any weapons, but Manhattan’s Eddie Raven sure as hell does!” he shot back.
“Manhattan’s Eddie Raven is going to have to improvise,” she answered.
“Just between you and me . . .” he began.
“Who else is there?” she replied.
“Just between you and me, what possible purpose is served by me being a vampire?”
“It teaches you to adjust,” she said. “We don’t know what lies ahead when you’re finally ready for your mission—which, I should add, is not that far off. Our job is to prepare you for it.”
“And being a blood-sucking member of the undead helps make me ready?”
She shrugged. “It might. There are things even the Mistress of Illusions doesn’t know.”
“You could help, you know,” said Raven.
“I am helping.”
“You could have disarmed the Knight of the White Moon and saved me the trouble. I mean, hell, you’re the Mistress of Illusions. You could have solved damned near every problem I’ve been faced with.”
“To what purpose?” she shot back.
“What?” he half shouted in surprise.
“How would that have prepared you?”
“Prepared me for what?” he demanded.
For just a few seconds she was Lisa again, and she looked straight into his eyes. “For what you must do,” she said. “And you must do it alone. That’s why neither Rofocale nor I nor anyone else can help you now. We don’t know what you’ll be facing, just that it’s of a far greater magnitude than anything you’ve faced so far—indeed, than anybody has ever faced—and you have to be ready for it, as ready as we can make you, anyway.” She sighed deeply. “That’s why you’re not a warrior, or a sorcerer, or a hunter in every encounter.”
“Okay,” said Raven. “So what’s expected of me as a vampire?”
They could suddenly hear the screams of the enraged townspeople approaching the castle, and in that instant she became Igor once again.
“I should have thought the answer to your question would be obvious,” she replied. “Survive!”
He stared at her without answering, then looked down at the crowd again. An elderly man was being escorted to the front door, and he was instantly joined by a well-dressed young man and woman. The rest of the assemblage held back.
“That figures,” said Raven.
She frowned. “You know them?”
“I don’t know anyone,” he replied. “We’re all fictional, remember?”
“But you spoke as if you recognized them.”
“To this extent: If I’m Dracula, then I know who they have to be, whether they’re Bram Stoker’s creations or not.”
“And who are they?”
“The three people most closely associated with Dracula,” replied Raven. “The older one’s got to be Van Helsing, and the couple are Jonathan and Mina Harker.” He paused and frowned. “At least she’ll become Mina Harker by the end of the book, or if I let her live.” A humorless smile crossed his misshapen face. “Doubtless they’re here to talk sense into me.”
“I’d better go greet them and escort them up here,” said Lisa. “We don’t want them to think anything’s wrong or different.”
“No,” he agreed as she began hurrying toward the stone staircase. “After all, we’re delighted to play host to people who want to kill us.” He glanced out the window again. “You’re just damned lucky I don’t have a few cauldrons of boiling whatever to pour over the side of the roof.”
“Don’t get so taken by your role,” she said. “Remember, it is just a role.”
Suddenly he frowned. “Stop!” he snapped.
She froze. “What is it?”
“It’s 1897. They haven’t seen any of the movies.”
“I don’t understand, Eddie. What are you talking about?”
“I’ve actually read the damned book. A long time ago, to be sure, but it’s coming back to me—and there’s no Igor in it. Hollywood swiped him from the Frankenstein novel thirty or forty years later.”
“Then who—?” she began, puzzled.
“Renfield,” he answered. “Late fifties, built like a defensive lineman, crazy as a loon.”
And instantly, in Igor’s place, he was facing the Renfield that Bram Stoker had painstakingly described back in 1897.
Raven nodded his reluctant approval of her appearance. “Okay,” he said. “Go greet our guests and bring them up here. And if possible, close and lock the door once they’re inside the damned castle.”
“Yes, Dracula,” she said, scurrying down the remaining stairs and rushing up to the massive door. It took all her strength to swing the portal open enough for Van Helsing and the Harkers to pass through it. She wanted to ask for help closing and bolting it, but then she remembered what she now looked like, and she didn’t want to arouse any further suspicions, so she put every ounce of strength she possessed into it and slowly, gradually swung the door shut.
“The count is awaiting you,” she said to Van Helsing and the Harkers. “Please follow me.”