As I returned to the mansion, where it stood on the highest point of the island overlooking the vast expanse of the sea to its west and a deep ravine to its east, I heard something new. It sounded like the voices of the Aerie Ones, if the Aerie Ones were both singing and weeping simultaneously.
It was as if the wind itself had been given tongue. Its song reached into my soul and drew me out from myself, simultaneously embracing me and making me one with the sky. The wind sang, and the sky answered. My body never moved, yet my spirit was swept up into the air. As the winds chanted and the earth danced, the sea leapt from its bed. Walls of water flew up rather than down, ringing us in a fortress of storm and fury.
“Tempest,” Father called it later, and the glorious sound that had drawn me from myself, he named “flute.”
This was the very storm that drove the ship carrying the King of Naples, his handsome son Prince Ferdinand, and my wicked Uncle Antonio—the one responsible for exiling us to our lonely island—against our shores. That same vessel was destined to take us back to civilization.
I could not look upon the flute that had played such music without recalling the wonder of that day when I, an earthborn and duty-bound creature, first tasted freedom. Nor had the desire to return to the sky ever left me.
“My staff,” I murmured, cradling the precious flute, “The Staff of Winds!”
“And the bane of my race.” Mab stomped up beside me. “One whistle from that oversized piccolo, and we Aerie-Born start hopping like rabbits. Doesn’t such a contraption violate the Thirteenth Amendment? I’m going to complain to my congressman.”
I laughed. “Mab, you don’t have a congressman.”
Mab drew himself up as tall as his stocky stature allowed. “Oh, yes I do! I’ve read your constitution through and through, and nowhere does it specify that men need be born of flesh to be protected by its rights. ‘Race, color, and/or previous state of servitude.’ Says it right there. In my case, it’s previous state of servitude.”
“But Mab, you’re not just another race, you’re another species.”
“Are you certain?” Mab’s gaze was fierce. “Haven’t you heard it said that we Aerie Ones are the shades of men who escaped from limbo when the High God broke open the doors of Hell to rescue his son?”
“Really? I thought your people were much older than that.”
“Perhaps we are,” Mab shrugged. “Or perhaps, by the High God, the story meant Odin.”
I looked down the immense hall that held the statues of my brothers and sister. Ghosts of ages past seemed to walk its marble floors, dancing before my mind’s eye. I saw the family gathering to hear Father’s latest tasks for us; Mephisto practicing sword stances; Theo patiently teaching Logistilla to waltz; Titus practicing his golf swing (to Father’s dismay); Erasmus leaning casually against the wall, his arms crossed, throwing me a supercilious sneer; grim and pious Gregor and blind Cornelius playing chess while Ulysses filled them in on the latest gossip of the Ton.
Once, all the power, all our staffs, had been under Father’s control. Working together at his behest, we freed mankind from the tyranny of the supernatural. Then, Father put the staffs into our separate hands, and, one by one, each of my siblings deserted our cause. Now, they roamed across the planet, wasting their strength and squandering the gifts Father had granted them. Only Father and I remained at our posts, and now, Father was missing.
With the setting sun, darkness was gathering, obscuring the faces of the statues. I sat down on the arm of the Wife’s Chair again, icy chill and all. My fingers curled about the polished shaft of my long flute.
“Never mind, Mab. Go on back to the office and finish following up whatever petty larceny case you’re working on. I’m not going to warn my family. They just don’t deserve it.”
“Wise decision,” Mab stuck his notebook back in his trench coat. “You’ll only increase your own danger by traipsing around trying to locate these goons. My suggestion is that you hire a lawyer to check out Mr. Mephistopheles’s situation, drop Mr. Cornelius a letter in braille, and hire a few mundane detectives to locate that Theo chap, to give him the warning just in case. I’ll do the initial legwork myself, if you prefer.”
I nodded. “Yes, I guess that would be best. Maybe you could put Gooseberry in charge of looking for Father.”
Mab scowled, “Ma’am, Gooseberry’s been dead for eighty years.”
“Has it been that long?” I felt a pang of sorrow as I recalled. Gooseberry had been a helpful spirit, adventurous and brave. Whenever I went boating, he had been the Aerie One I called to blow into my sails, and when I was but a child, he had taken me flying over the beaches of Father’s island. We swooped through the air like gulls, racing over the shore, and then soared upward, the earth falling away beneath us until the island appeared to be but a sandcastle in the midst of the tide. Father put a stop to those expeditions, fearing the danger to his darling little angel, but the memory of them shall remain with me so long as I live. The joy of those flights has seldom been paralleled in my long life. It was that joy the music of that first flute concert brought back so vividly.
Back in the early twentieth century, when Father conceived the idea of putting the Aerie Ones into fleshly bodies, Gooseberry had been the first Aerie One to volunteer. He had done a fine job as a fleshly servant. He was never as intelligent as Mab, but he had been loyal and diligent. Then, while out on a case for Father, a thug shot him repeatedly, killing his fleshly body instantly. When the body died, Gooseberry perished, too. This was a shock to Father and me. We had not known Aerie Ones could die.
I sighed. “Well, pick someone else then, someone you trust. Mab . . . Mab?”
Mab was not listening. He stared into the darkening hall, a strange and inhuman alertness on his craggy features.
“Mistress,” his voice rang oddly. “Beware!”
“People with congressmen don’t have mistresses, Mab.”
“The darkness . . .”
“The sun is setting, Mab. Those little windows don’t light the room all that well.”
“No,” Mab cried. “Look up!”
High above, sunlight streamed through the tiny round windows. Yet, the sunbeams no longer reached the statues. Instead, they were being dispersed by a gathering gloom. The hall before us was thickening with shadows.
“Shadows . . . the Three Shadowed Ones!”
Mab grabbed my arm, and we ducked behind the two massive stone thrones.
Darkness billowed through the Great Hall, spreading like ink through water. Silent as shadow it came, wafting toward where Mab and I crouched upon the cold stone behind the thrones and bringing with it the scent of newly-struck matches.
“It can’t be!” I whispered.
“Can’t be what?”
“This billowing darkness. That smell!” I whispered. “I’d swear it came from Gregor’s staff! But it can’t be. We buried the Staff of Darkness with my brother’s body. I was there for the funeral. I saw it go into the coffin!”
“Shh,” Mab cut me off. “Something’s moving!”
We gazed silently into the murk. Something flitted from alcove to alcove, pausing momentarily to peer at each statue. A shiver, like a finger of ice, slid down my spine. Our staffs! It was after our staffs! Silently, I thanked my Lady that I had come and claimed my flute before the intruder arrived!
Whoever it was drew closer, until I could make him out through the clouds of darkness: a black figure in a billowing opera cape, carrying a length of ebony traced with angular red runes.
“That is Gregor’s staff!” I hissed. “If this is one of the Three Shadowed Ones, and they can use our staffs, no wonder Father wanted me to warn the others! What is that thing?”
Mab squinted. I knew he was taking in the creature’s silhouette, motion and gait, and other characteristics a thaumaturge uses to identify his supernatural quarry. “Can’t tell for sure from here. Either cacodemon or incubus.”
A demon! A knot formed in the pit of
my stomach. I had been certain he would say shade or, at the worst, djinn. My family had no truck with the denizens of Hell! We were solely devoted to the Forces of Good. Ordinarily, this protected us from the Powers of Darkness. What could have gone wrong? How had this one slipped past the wards that guarded the house?
The demon stepped from the shadows, his footsteps ringing against the marble. His hands, his short spiral horns, and his perfectly chiseled face were smooth and sable-dark, as if the night itself had coalesced into the shape of a man. I stifled a gasp. This creature was unlike any demon I had ever beheld. Despite eyes as red as newly pooled blood, he was handsome enough to beguile the moon, possibly the second handsomest male I had encountered in all my long life.
“Definitely an incubus,” mouthed Mab.
“Do you think he saw us?”
“Only if he can see through the darkness your brother’s staff produces.”
“Not likely then,” I whispered back.
Coming to my statue, the incubus swore softly. A cold shiver trickled down my spine. He had been expecting my flute! Who had told him it would be here?
And why did he continue to stand there, staring in such rapt fascination at the stone likeness of me?
After an uncomfortably long pause, during which chills traveled up my spine, our sable intruder turned away, heading for the center of the hall. From under his opera cape, he drew a crystal bottle. Unstopping it, he released something bright and sparkling. Then, shadows billowed from Gregor’s staff, embracing him, and he was gone.
Immediately, shafts of sunlight from above pierced the gloom. I began to rise, but Mab grabbed my arm, yanking me down.
“That thing he dropped, it’s a star spark!” he barked. “As soon as it realizes it’s no longer constrained, it will attempt to return to its proper place.”
“Which is?”
“In the Sphere of the Fixed Stars!”
“Which means?”
“This whole place is about to blow!”
“We can’t lose the Great Hall!”
I raised my flute to my lips and began to play. Music issued forth, swelling and filling the hall with a marvelous noise. The flute’s eerie and lilting voice still sounded to my ear like the lamentation of the air, and perhaps rightly so, for with it I could compel the Aerie Ones to sing, but I could not forbid them from weeping for their lost freedom.
Through the music, I called to the Aerie Ones, commanding them to carry the spark to one of the high round windows, so that it might return to its proper sphere unimpeded. My servants obliged me, and the shimmering ball of orange and red sparks was whisked upward toward the windows by a billowing breeze.
The star spark expanded quickly, showering golden and crimson about the hall as it wafted upwards, shedding a fragrance like sweet ozone.
Fearing it would not reach the window in time, I changed my song, altering my instructions as I ordered some of the Aerie Ones to form an airy cushion between the spark and the rest of the hall, to protect us from the impact of any explosion.
A shuffling gacking noise to my right drew my attention. Mab had left the protective cover of Father’s throne and now moved toward the center of the hall, dancing and jerking like a puppet. His trench coat whipped about him. One hand grasped his hat, holding it in place.
I was contemplating scolding him for endangering us with foolishness when the horrible truth of his situation dawned upon me. The music was compelling his obedience! Yet, an explosion would destroy his fleshly body. Given time, I could have remedied the situation, but time I did not have. I would have to sacrifice Mab’s fleshly body, which was a shame because, without Father, I did not know how to replace it. I hoped being blown apart would not hurt him much.
Then I remembered Gooseberry.
I could protect the Great Hall, or I could save Mab. This hall had been part of my family for over five hundred years, and I was not going to let it and everything it represented be destroyed by a demon! What a shame. I had liked Mab. I was going to miss him.
As I glanced up to wish him a silent good-bye, Mab looked back at me, his eyes wild and beseeching. When he saw me glancing his way, his face lit up with tremendous hope. Then, quick as it had come, despair followed. He knew. He knew I was about to let him die.
Unexpectedly, this troubled me. If I were in Mab’s place, it occurred to me, I would not wish to die.
Blowing sharply on the flute as if it were a whistle, I recalled the Aerie Ones to me. The desires of Mab’s spirit united with those of his flesh, and he leapt toward the safety of the heavy stone thrones.
With a deafening bang, the star spark exploded into a bloom of fireworks. Mab flew toward me, silhouetted by dazzling red-and-gold light. He plummeted down upon me, and we clutched each other until the brightness dimmed. For a moment, all was silent, except for the ringing in my ears. Then, came the terrible sound of stone grinding against stone, followed by an ear-rending crash. The hall shook.
“Mab?” I whispered, when the shaking finally ended.
“Here, Ma’am . . . Thanks to you,” he replied. “Are you whole?”
“Yes.” I rose and regarded the Great Hall. “Oh my, Mab, oh my!”
Large chunks of red stone lay about the hall. Above, clouds sailed across a blue sky. To the left, flickering tongues of flame licked at the gaping hole in what had once been the wall between the Great Hall and the library. The air was thick with rock dust.
“Mab! The library’s on fire!” I cried, “Father’s books!”
“Let ’em burn. About time we got rid of them,” Mab growled from where he rose to his feet, rubbing his shoulder.
“Some of those volumes are bound with the Seal of Solomon. Who knows what might escape if the seals break!”
“Merciful Setebos!” Mab leapt up, bellowing for the rest of the household to attend him.
My flute had come through the disaster intact. Raising it to my lips, I played a favorite passage from The Rite of Spring. The music soared and moaned, echoing my shock and sorrow and yet lifting me above it. Overhead, clouds gathered rapidly, and a downpour quickly quenched the flames. Once the fire was out, I switched to a pastoral movement from Beethoven’s Sixth. Its gentle soothing strains dispersed the clouds, allowing the early winter sun to shine upon the damp library.
By this time, Ariel had arrived to direct the clean-up effort. Dry books were moved to the far side of the library; damp ones hurried off to the bindery. It pained my heart to see six-hundred-year-old volumes drip with water, but better damp books than burnt ones.
THE sky was growing dark, and the first stars of the evening could be seen above the Great Hall. The steady drip-drip of water, still falling from the edges of the rent, echoed throughout the hall, pattering down upon the great chunks of red stone scattered across the floor. This hall had stood remarkably unchanged, despite its several moves, for over five hundred years. Seeing it thus nearly moved me to tears.
The biggest question on my mind, however, was: how had the demon breached Father’s wards? We had fought supernatural monstrosities, even—upon a rare occasion—demons, for half a millennium, but none of them had ever attacked us in Father’s house. It was a safe refuge, inviolate! To have an intruder, and an infernal one at that, break into my house and violate our refuge made me feel simultaneously helpless and furious.
Worse, why had the demon been able to use Gregor’s staff? And why was the staff not in Elgin, Illinois, in my brother’s grave?
I made my way across the rock-strewn floor, splashing through puddles as I walked. About halfway down the hall, I found Mab sitting on a chunk of broken stone. Water sluiced off his trench coat. He held his wet hat in his hand.
“Ma’am,” he said wearily, “I realize you will not listen to me, but I’d like to respectfully suggest you get away from this house. You’re not safe here. The perpetrator could return any time.”
“Are you all right, Mab?” I asked, ignoring him.
“Yeah. I’m all right,” Mab rubbed
his shoulder. “If you won’t flee, Ma’am, may I, at least, have your permission to refresh the wards that protect the house, so this won’t happen again?”
“Of course!” I paused. “Thank goodness we were in the hall when this happened!”
“You can say that again!” Mab nodded. “North Wind only knows what might have been released if that fire had been allowed to burn unattended. I’ve heard stories about some of the forbidden powers Mr. Prospero, in his foolishness, keeps bound—stories that would scare your socks off.”
“That is not all.” My fingers flexed about my flute protectively. “If we had arrived a few moments later, my staff would still have been in the hands of my statue when the incubus came.”
Mab scowled and put on his hat. “Forgive me, Ma’am, if I don’t dance a jig over the preservation of your precious little flute, but I think I’ve done enough dancing to its tune today.”
“You don’t understand, that’s . . .” I began.
“You can say that again,” Mab interrupted.
“That’s what the demon was after,” I finished, “He was looking for my flute!”
“Shame he didn’t get all the staffs. World would be better off with those atrocious pieces of kindling in the hands of people who can’t use them,” Mab grumbled. Then, his head snapped up. “That black staff! You said it was Mr. Gregor’s . . . the demon was using it!” An expression of supernatural horror came over his features. “Holy Croesus! Are you telling me that if we’d arrived a few minutes later, some minion of Hell would now be in command of my entire race?”
“Yes.”
Mab’s craggy face froze in a grimace of terror. Then, he stood and reached out his hand.
“Tell you what. Hand me the damned thing. I’ll solve the problem once and forever.”
“Luckily for us both, it’s not damned yet.” I added, “Not that I would give it to you under any circumstance, but just to satisfy my intellectual curiosity, what, specifically, would you do with it?”
Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I Page 4
