Flaminio opened his eyes, seized the invisible something that he had just conjured up and prepared to hurtle the burden away. He was aiming to his right, where many of the staff were standing, until Odaldi urgently hissed and pointed. “Left, Flaminio, left. In that direction.”
Finally taking the hint, Flaminio tossed his virtual load to the left, where it collided with, and partially destroyed, a small desk—after which the invisible force then ricocheted into two of the servants, knocking them to the floor. As the servants were helped to their feet by other serving staff, Odaldi explained Flaminio’s power.
“Flaminio can create virtual boulders with his mind—a very useful tool for any army, to be able to throw invisible objects at your enemy.”
Most of the onlookers applauded enthusiastically. Luca clapped politely but looked unimpressed.
Pascol was the next to demonstrate his new skill. A tall, thin individual who originally hailed from Milan, Pascol was incredibly pompous—he typically acted as though he was far better than those around him. He was always impeccably dressed and groomed, usually in the latest fashions from the city of his birth, and today was no different. He cut a dashing figure, ruffled white collar contrasting with a stylish crimson false-sleeved silk doublet and matching hose of patterned damask. With his fussy moustache and long thin face, thought Chrymos, Pascol always reminds me of a ferret.
Odaldi indicated that the audience should move back, which—after Flaminio’s recent demonstration of the perils of being too close—they hastily did. Two servants maneuvered an empty barrel into place on the podium before quickly evacuating the area.
Like Luca, Pascol reached out and took an orchid from a nearby vase. He held the orchid above the empty barrel and then, after checking that his audience was paying attention, blinked his eyes, just once. The flower he was holding simply dissolved into liquid, flowing through Pascol’s fingers into the barrel.
Pascol’s hand was wet, so he gestured to a nearby servant who was holding a towel. That unfortunate underling, afraid of being turned into water, very tentatively held out the towel at arm’s length.
Pascol took the towel, dried his hand and then held the towel itself, pinched between thumb and forefinger, over the barrel. Another blink and the towel also liquefied, flowing into the barrel to join the fluid remains of the former orchid.
Pascol lifted his hand away and shook off a few drops of liquefied towel, then turned that movement into an ornate bow towards Academy staff. As Pascol left the podium to slightly nervous applause, Chrymos shook her head slightly. None of us will be shaking hands with Pascol any time soon.
Simon was next. Where Pascol was merely tall, Simon was a veritable giant, at least six foot three inches in height. He was a former grain farmer, press-ganged from the streets of Naples after a wayward night out drinking in the big city to celebrate a record harvest. Simon had no desire to go back to his farming life—he preferred the challenges on offer in the Academy to the back-breaking work in the fields.
Chrymos had always liked Simon. He had a gentle heart and a simplistic view on life, which could be summed up in a single philosophy: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That attitude made it even more surprising that Simon had such a passion for, and could do wondrous tricks with, knives. He could throw a knife and hit his target dead center or make the knife twist and turn in the air and even somehow find its way around a corner. Simon was forever juggling, sharpening, or whittling with his collection of knives, demonstrating uncanny skills. Even if Simon turns out to have no useful powers, thought Chrymos, he will still be valuable to the Academy.
As it happened, Simon had indeed acquired a new and noteworthy talent. He stood on the podium, towering over everybody—and then his body began to shrink.
Down, down, down, he went—down to “normal” size, then to child size, then down again still further. He stopped shrinking when he was about the size of a large cat. The watching students went crazy, clapping and whistling, until the Contessa picked up a tiny bell and rang it—once, but that was enough.
She bent down to Simon, speaking quietly. “Can you hear me?”
A tiny, squeaky voice replied. “Yes, there’s no need to shout.”
Odaldi took over the proceedings at this point, as the Contessa moved out of the way.
“You’ll notice,” said Odaldi, “that Simon’s clothes shrank along with him, as did his knives and anything else that was touching his bare skin.”
Father Carracci stepped forward. “Doctor Odaldi, you’ve had the opportunity to work with Simon on his powers over the last two months. How useful will those skills be in battle, when he is competing against full-sized opponents?”
In response, Odaldi pushed a wooden bench close to the diminutive Simon. With a tiny knife in each hand, Simon was able to climb up the side of the bench, creating his own handholds with each thrust of the two knives. He quickly stood on top of the bench, knives ready to go slashing into action.
Odaldi explained further. “His strength is proportionate to his new size, but he keeps those knives very sharp and they could easily do some significant damage—especially if he dips the blades in poison first.”
Carracci nodded, recognizing the possibilities inherent in such skills, but Odaldi wasn’t finished.
“Simon’s real advantage lies in stealth. He can shrink down to get through any defenses and then enlarge himself and strike from behind.”
Chrymos scrutinized Simon as he began to return to his full size. The Simon she thought she knew would have been appalled at such talk but now he seemed unfazed by the prospect of behaving in such a treacherous fashion. Has he changed or have I simply been getting the wrong impression?
“Thanks Simon,” said Odaldi, indicating that the new graduate should retire to the sidelines. “Finally now, let’s see what Bitino has to offer us.”
Bitino was the last of the graduating class to be introduced, and he came forward triumphantly, raising his arms as if to acknowledge the adulation that would soon be his. Bitino was one of the group that Adric liked to describe as “the rich and powerless”—Napoletano families who were still wealthy in their own right but who had little influence with the Spanish Empire and its vice-regal representatives governing the Kingdom of Naples. Bitino—and Luca, who came from a similar background—resented the Spanish Empire for a simple reason: they were not part of its power structure.
Today, however, Bitino thinks he’s onto a winner, thought Chrymos. I wonder what power he’s received?
Odaldi nodded to Bitino—and the grand ballroom started to become very, very cold. Then it began to snow—inside. Light flurries of mixed hail and ice pellets and powdered snow at first, then the wind arrived, stirring up the mixture, turning it into deadly missiles that pelted the audience. They endured the discomfort at first, but then as the bad weather intensified the audience broke and ran for the doors.
All except one. Father Carracci stood his ground, clapping slowly and loudly. He shouted out, above the noise and clamor of the blizzard, “We get the idea, Bitino. Stop—now.”
Bitino stopped what he was doing. He looked around, surprised and more than a little pleased at the chaos he had caused, then once again turned to the audience, smiled proudly and lifted his arms high above his head. If he expected a standing ovation, he was sadly mistaken—from their vantage points around the exits and at the furthest corners of the room, everyone just stared at him. In particular, the Contessa glared—furious.
Bitino took another, closer look at his surroundings and his eyes opened wide in horror as he finally realized what he had done. The glamorous ballroom was now in ruins. Most of the priceless crystal chandeliers had been torn apart by the deadly wind he had conjured up. A few remnants dangled in tatters from ceiling hooks, but most chandeliers lay in pieces on the ballroom floor. Their candles had been scattered—but thankfully extinguished—by the combination of wind, snow, and rain. And what little light remained in the ballroom was no lon
ger reflected off the gold leaf, which itself had been battered and torn by wind and by shards of ice as the storm pounded the walls.
Odaldi came back to the podium, picking his way carefully through the crystal fragments. “Bitino, wait over there—we will deal with you shortly.” Several of the servants rushed out of the room, returning with candle stands so that there would at least be enough light to see by. Odaldi then motioned for everyone to resume their places in the ballroom. He waited until the onlookers found relatively clear spaces near the podium.
Whatever Odaldi planned to say was lost when the Master, Giambattista Della Porta, rushed into the ballroom. He was tall and thin and the little hair that remained on his mostly bald head was short and grey. The Master’s beard was closely cropped, which did little to hide his perpetually grim expression. Della Porta usually dressed more formally for graduation ceremonies but on this occasion he was in his everyday attire, a ruffled white shirt and plain black breeches.
Della Porta spoke briefly to the Contessa. From where she stood, Chrymos could hear snatches of the conversation, but understood none of it. “—yōdʿayin šīntāw wāwʾāleprēš ḥētālepšīn nūnhēālep rēšyōdlāmed—” The senior staff often used this secret language, which they called Mystikó, to talk with each other, to the frustration of many of the students.
Della Porta completed his conversation and then walked over to the podium. Surprisingly, he ignored the chaos in the room but simply addressed the assembly.
“Congratulations to our newest graduates.” Della Porta led a brief round of applause. “Regrettably, we will need all of the new graduates to begin working at once. As you may be aware, our Alchemae teams are already involved in special missions. We have now received an urgent assignment that requires us to send today’s newcomers on missions of their own.”
Della Porta turned to the remaining students, his voice cutting through the hurried whispers that had resulted from his previous announcement. “We also need to advance our next graduation program. Father Carracci, your current group of students will be given their potions tomorrow rather than a year from now. We need them on the front line as soon as possible.”
Chrymos’ heart leapt. Tomorrow? Finally! I doubt that I will get much sleep tonight.
THIRTY-THREE
Academy of Secrets, Naples, Kingdom of Naples, Near Midnight, Wednesday April 7 1610
Chrymos tossed and turned, trying to quieten her overactive mind so that she could get at least some sleep.
When she finally started to doze, she immediately wished she hadn’t. Somehow, she was sure that she was in a dream—but that knowledge gave Chrymos no comfort at all.
Olivia stood in front of her. The girl was once again the starving waif she had been when Chrymos had first found her outside the vice-regal palace. Once again, the little girl was clad in a tunic so flimsy that she must have been frozen to the bone.
Olivia’s eyes were lifeless and her face, usually so animated, bore no expression at all. The question asked by this apparition sent a bolt of lightning through Chrymos’ heart. “Was your power worth the price that we had to pay?”
In her dream, as perhaps in real life, Chrymos had no satisfactory answer to that question. She still could not find the words to explain why she had chosen the Academy over the children. “Wanting to make a difference” seemed so abstract and selfish, even to her.
Chrymos had questions of her own for Olivia. Even though Chrymos had traveled to the city every Sunday afternoon for most of the last three months, she had found no trace of any of the children. Even Madalena’s estranged mother Catarina had claimed to have no idea where the three had gone. Chrymos had to ask, even if this was just a dream. “Olivia, where are you? Where are Sirus and Madalena?”
Dream-Olivia’s answer reflected Chrymos’ worst fears. “They’re both dead, Chrymos. They died when you abandoned us, but their bodies took some time to rot.”
That transformation began to happen to Olivia’s own body as well—it started to disintegrate before Chrymos’ very eyes. The child’s arms and legs were the first to go, withering away and then turning to dust, sending what remained of Olivia’s body crashing to the ground. Chrymos watched in horror, unable to move, as Olivia’s torso collapsed in on itself, her ribcage giving way and breaking apart.
In a matter of moments, only the young girl’s head remained—and even that was beginning to dissolve. Before it disappeared entirely, this phantom Olivia asked one final question. “Are you happy now, Chrymos?”
Chrymos woke with a start. After that nightmare, she dared not allow herself to go back to sleep.
Gaining those long-awaited powers no longer seemed a joyful prospect.
THIRTY-FOUR
Academy of Secrets, Naples, Kingdom of Naples, Morning, Thursday April 8 1610
The morning finally arrived. Chrymos’ nightmare had extinguished any excitement she might have felt, but her determination was as strong as ever. If the world was indeed on the brink of the Lost War, whatever powers Chrymos gained she intended to use to protect the innocent—which, she desperately hoped, includes Olivia, Sirus and Madalena.
She didn’t have to wait long. Directly after the morning meal, Chrymos and the five other members of her class were ushered into Giambattista Della Porta’s office, where both Della Porta and Father Carracci were ready for them. The Master of the Academy was first to speak.
“As I have said on many occasions, we owe a great debt of thanks to the late Pope Gregory XIII. If he hadn’t forced me to ‘close down’ the Accademia dei Segreti thirty years ago, it would have been but a pale shadow of what it has now become. Instead, operating in secrecy, without having to constantly seek approval from the Church, we have achieved so much more.”
Father Carracci looks very unhappy about those comments, thought Chrymos, but no-one else seems to have noticed.
Della Porta continued. “You will all naturally be wondering why your class must graduate early.” Of course, thought Chrymos—that had been virtually the sole topic of conversation amongst the students since the previous day’s announcement.
Finally, Della Porta revealed all. “I have received word via the Janus twins of a new agreement, the Treaty of Bruzolo, which is due to be signed later this week by Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, and King Henri IV of France. Under the terms of the treaty, Savoy and France have agreed to combine their forces to drive the Spanish Empire from the Kingdom of Naples and all the other Italian territory that Spain controls.”
The six students gasped in shock. Naples had been directly under the control of the Spanish Empire for more than a century and its links to Spain through the Kingdom of Aragon stretched much further back, across many hundreds of years. This treaty would rewrite the map of Europe.
Della Porta wasn’t finished. “This is an unprecedented situation. We need to take urgent action. I am sending Alchemae teams to France and Savoy immediately—but they may face stern opposition so I am appointing your class to provide additional reinforcements. As a result, those of you deemed ready will be given your dose of Exousía potion today.”
The Master of the Academy, never one to display much emotion, was suitably matter-of-fact as he continued. “It is unfortunate that you were unable to complete your final year of training. Instead you will have to learn as you go along. The most important fact that you need to know is that your powers will fade if you do not receive a fresh dose of potion every few months.”
A thought flashed through Chrymos’ head. No doubt you will only provide the Exousía potion to those who follow your orders. That explains why the older members of the Alchemae continue to do the Academy’s bidding despite their impressive superpowers.
That thought led her to another, more important concern. How can I get enough potion to maintain my powers without having to rely on the Academy to provide it?
Meanwhile, Della Porta continued his speech. “The second essential fact that you should know concerns the purpose of the Academy
, especially now that France and Savoy have revealed their true intentions. You have already been reassured that we in the Academy are loyal citizens of the Spanish Empire. That is true—at least, insofar as our loyalty to Spain does not conflict with our far greater purpose, which is to bring about the restoration of the mighty Roman Empire. For more than five hundred years, the Roman Empire was the greatest power in the world. It shall reclaim that throne again.”
The Master turned and bowed to the statue of the Emperor Nero, which was displayed proudly in his office. The sculptor had captured Nero on his knees, tears rolling down his cheeks, as he searched desperately through the rubble for survivors of the Great Fire that devastated more than half of Rome.
It’s a magnificent work of art, conceded Chrymos. It obviously reflects the Master’s views about Nero, even if not everyone here shares that thinking. She looked in particular at Father Carracci, who was trying to avoid reacting to Della Porta’s speech. I doubt he believes in the same cause.
Della Porta stood and stretched out his arm in a traditional Roman salute, palm downward. “I honor you all. Romae gloria aeterna est. On behalf of the once and future Roman Empire, welcome to the Alchemae!”
Niccolo, Bartholomeo, and Salvator clapped politely, Ruben bowed in acknowledgement of the welcome. Adric and Chrymos looked at each other and both politely inclined their heads towards the Master.
As Father Carracci began to usher all the students out of the Master’s office, Della Porta called out. “Your pardon, Father, I need to speak with you privately.”
Carracci nodded, then beckoned to Ruben and passed over a handful of papers. “Take these to Doctor Odaldi—you’ll find him in the Tower. As for the rest of you,” Carracci continued, “wait for me at the Tower entrance.”
THIRTY-FIVE
The Tower, Academy of Secrets, Naples, Kingdom of Naples, Morning, Thursday April 8 1610
Academy of Secrets: From the Outcast Angels Christian Fantasy & Science Fiction series Page 11
