by Kai Meyer
“He’s crazy!” If Merle had spoken aloud, her voice would have sounded resigned.
“Perhaps a little.”
“Do you think I’m crazy?” asked the lion cheerfully.
Why lie? “You were locked up in that tower for too long. And you know nothing about us people.”
“Did you not reproach me for the same thing?” the Flowing Queen interjected. “Do not oversimplify.”
Vermithrax cut a sharp turn to the right in order to avoid another gun salvo. Merle swayed on his back, but the bushy tip of the lion’s tail pressed her firmly into his mane.
“If they keep on shooting so wildly, they’ll soon use up their ammunition,” she bellowed into the wind.
“They are only warning shots. They want us alive.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“They could have hit us long ago if they had wanted to.”
“Does Vermithrax know that?”
“Of course. Do not underestimate his intelligence. These aerial maneuvers are harmless games. He is having fun with it. Possibly he only wants to find out if he has forgotten anything in all the years.”
Merle’s stomach began to feel as if hands were tearing it in different directions. “I feel sick.”
“That will pass,” replied Vermithrax.
“All right for you to say.”
The lion looked back. “There they are.”
He’d allowed their pursuers to get closer. Four were just behind them still, but two now flanked them on either side. One of the riders, a white-haired captain of the Guard, looked Merle in the eye. He rode on a quartz lion.
“Give up!” he cried across the gap between them. He was about thirty feet away. “We’re armed and outnumber you. If you keep flying in this direction, you’ll fall into the Egyptians’ hands. We can’t allow that—and you can’t wish it.”
“Which councillor do you serve?” Merle called.
“Councillor Damiani.”
“He is not one of the three traitors,” said the Queen.
“Why are you following us?”
“I have my orders. And, dammit, that beast under you is the Ancient Traitor, girl! He laid half of Venice to rubble and ashes. You can’t expect we’ll simply let him go.”
Vermithrax turned his head to the captain and inspected him with obsidian eyes. “If you give up and turn around, I’ll let you live, human.”
Something strange happened. It wasn’t the reaction of the guardsman that astounded Merle, but that of his lion. With Vermithrax’s words the winged creature awoke from the indifference with which it usually carried out the orders of its human master. The lion stared over at Vermithrax, and for a long moment its wingbeats became more excited. The captain also noticed this and pulled on the reins in irritation. “Quiet, now.” His lips formed the words, but the wind snatched them away.
“The lion cannot understand why Vermithrax talks,” declared the Flowing Queen.
“Talk with the lion,” cried Merle into the obsidian lion’s ear. “That’s our chance.”
Vermithrax abruptly let himself drop down thirty feet. The length of two men now lay between his paws and the churning sea. The closer they came to the waves, the more keenly Merle perceived their speed.
“Now!” roared Vermithrax. “Hold on tight!”
Merle clutched even deeper in his wind-tossed mane as the obsidian lion speeded up with a series of quick wingbeats, then made a 180-degree turn, climbing at the same time, and suddenly flew at their pursuers.
“Lions,” he called over the water in a thundering voice. “Listen to me!”
The six winged lions of the Guard hesitated. The beats of their wings slowed. They hung almost motionless in the air; thus their rumps sank down, moving from the horizontal almost to the vertical. Girths and buckles creaked as the six riders were raised up in their security harnesses. None of them had expected this maneuver. The lions were acting on their own will, and the guardsmen were not used to that.
The captain called out to his men, “Aim at the girl!” But in this position the gigantic heads of their lions were in the soldiers’ way, and none of them could aim with only one hand and hold on to the mane with the other.
“Listen to me!” cried Vermithrax once more and looked from one lion to another. He too was floating in place, his wings beating unhurriedly up and down. “Once, I returned to this city in order to free you from the yoke of your oppressors. For a life in freedom. For an existence without compulsion and orders and battles that were never your own. As much air under your wings as you want! Hunting and fighting and, yes, speaking again, when you wish! A life like that of your forefathers!”
“He is using your language,” said the Flowing Queen. “The lions no longer understand their own.”
“They’re listening to him.”
“You have to ask for how long.”
The six riders bellowed helplessly at their lions, but Vermithrax’s voice easily overrode theirs. “You hesitate because you have never before heard that a lion speaks the language of men. But do you not also hesitate because there is a lion who is ready to fight for his freedom? Look over at me and ask yourselves: Do you not see in me your own selves again?”
One of the lions spit sharply. Vermithrax started, almost imperceptibly.
“He grieves,” explained the Queen. “Because they could be like him and yet they are still only animals.”
Other lions joined in the spitting, and the captain, who’d grown up with the lions and spent his entire life with them, smiled with the certainty of victory.
“Rebel against your masters!” Vermithrax bellowed angrily. The mood tipped from one moment to the next without Merle’s understanding the reason for it. “Don’t take orders anymore! Throw your riders into the sea, or carry them back to the city! But let us go in peace.”
The lion that had been the first to spit extended the claws of its front paws threateningly.
“It is no use,” said the Flowing Queen with a sigh. “It was worth the try, but it is pointless.”
“I don’t understand,” thought Merle bewilderedly. “Why wouldn’t they listen to him?”
“They fear him. They are afraid of his superiority. For many, many years no lion in Venice has spoken. These ones here have grown up in the belief that they are superior to all other lions by means of their wings alone. But now another one comes along who is even more powerful than they. They cannot grasp that.”
Merle felt the anger rising in her. “Then they’re just like us people.”
“Well, well,” retorted the Queen. She sounded amused. “Out of the mouths of babes . . .”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“No, excuse me. I did not intend to.”
Vermithrax spoke softly over his shoulder. “We’re going to have to run for it. Get ready.”
Merle nodded. Her eyes wandered over the six guardsmen. None of them had yet succeeded in aiming his rifle. But that would change as soon as the lions were horizontal again; as soon as they flew forward again.
“And—go!” roared Vermithrax.
What happened then went so fast that only looking back later did Merle realize how very close to death she had been.
With a roar and powerful wingbeats Vermithrax sped forward, under and past the formation of six guardsmen, steeply up behind them, upside down over them and away.
Merle squealed in horror. Even the Queen cried out.
But Vermithrax turned over and Merle sat right side up again, clutching his mane, still not quite grasping how she’d survived the last seconds safe and sound. The moment during which the sea had suddenly been over her head had been short and not really dangerous—Vermithrax was too fast and had too much momentum for Merle to have been able to lose her grip. Nevertheless . . . he could at least have warned her!
Again they shot over the water’s surface, this time toward the south, where the islands of the lagoon were fewer and small in comparison to those up in the north. Thus they wer
e voluntarily ruling out a whole string of good hiding places, and Merle earnestly hoped that Vermithrax’s decision was the right one. He had a plan, she told herself.
“I do not think so,” said the Queen demurely.
“You don’t?” Merle did not put the question aloud.
“No. He does not know his way around.”
“How reassuring.”
“You must tell him what he should do.”
“I?”
“Who else?”
“So you can blame me when we land in Nowhere!”
“Merle, this affair depends on you, not on Vermithrax. Not even on me. This is your journey.”
“Without my knowing what we’re planning?”
“You already know that. First: Leave Venice. And then: Find allies against the Empire.”
“Where?”
“What happened in the piazza was at least something like a first spark. Perhaps we can get the fire to kindle.”
Merle made a face. “Could you please express yourself a little more clearly?”
“The princes of Hell, Merle. They have offered to help us.”
Merle had the feeling of losing sight of the ground underneath her again, though Vermithrax was flying in a straight line toward the horizon.
“You really intend to ask Hell for help?”
“There is no other way.”
“What about the Czarist kingdom? People say they’ve also stopped the Pharaoh’s troops there.”
“The Czarist kingdom is under the protection of the Baba Yaga. I do not think it is a good idea to ask a goddess for help.”
“The Baba Yaga is a witch, not a goddess.”
“In her case that is one and the same, unfortunately.”
Before they could get into the subject more deeply, Vermithrax uttered an alarmed shout: “Look out! Now things are going to get unpleasant!”
Merle quickly looked over her shoulder behind them. Between the black feathered wings she saw the open mouth of a lion, and underneath, its outstretched claws. It shot toward them from behind. The target of its attack was not Vermithrax but she herself!
“They wanted it this way,” the obsidian lion growled sadly. He whirled around in midflight, so that Merle once again had to hold on with all her might so as not to be thrown from his back. She saw the eyes of the attacking lion widen, an animal reflection of its rider’s—then Vermithrax ducked away under the paws of his opponent, turned half to the side, and slit its belly open with a well-aimed blow of his claws. When Merle looked around again, lion and rider had disappeared. The waters of the lagoon turned red.
“They bleed!”
“Just because they are stone does not mean that their insides are any different from those of other living creatures,” the Queen said. “Death is dirty and stinks.”
Quickly Merle turned her eyes away from the red foam on the waves and looked forward, at the outlines of isolated islands approaching. Behind them lay the mainland, a dark stripe on the horizon.
Soon there were two more lions gaining on them. Vermithrax killed the first just as swiftly and mercilessly as his previous opponent. But the other learned from the carelessness of its companion, avoided the slash of the obsidian claws, and tried to reach Vermithrax’s underside. Vermithrax cried out as one of the claws grazed him. At the last moment he avoided the deadly blow. Roaring angrily, he flew in an arc, rushed straight at his astonished foe, closer, closer, closer; did not swerve; did not yield; only at the very last second pulled up and swiped the face of the other lion with his rear paws. Stone splintered, then lion and rider disappeared.
Merle felt tears on her cheeks. She didn’t want all this death, and still she could not stop it. Vermithrax had urged the lions of the Guard to let them go. Now the only thing left for him was to defend their very lives. He did it with the strength and determination of his people.
“Three left,” said the Flowing Queen.
“Must they all die, then?”
“Not if they give up.”
“They’ll never do that. You know that.”
On one of the three surviving lions rode the captain of the Guard. His white hair was tossed by the wind; the expression on his face betrayed uncertainty. It lay on him to order a retreat, but Merle saw by looking at him that he would not even consider that possibility. Capture. If necessary, kill. Those were his orders. For him there was no alternative.
It went fast. Their opponents had not the shadow of a chance. The captain was the only one left, and again Vermithrax bade him retreat. But the soldier only spurred his lion harder. With a lightning move he shot at Merle and Vermithrax. For a brief moment it looked as though the lion of the Guard had in fact succeeded in landing a hit with its claws. But Vermithrax flew an avoidance maneuver that again brought Merle into a dangerous slanting position. At the same time he began the counterattack. The eyes of his enemy showed comprehension, but not even the recognition of defeat was enough to make him turn back. Vermithrax screamed in torment as he dug his claws into the flank of the other; then he turned quickly so that he needn’t look as lion and rider plunged into the water.
For a long time no one said a word. Even the Flowing Queen was silent, stricken.
Below them appeared islands with ruins of old fortifications still standing, defenses that people had erected against the Empire. Today they were nothing more than ribs of stone and steel. Cannon barrels rusted in the sun, frosted by the salty winds of the Mediterranean. Here and there forgotten tent poles stuck up out of the swampy wilderness, hardly distinguishable from the three-foot-high reeds.
Once they flew over a section where the water looked lighter, as if a formation of wide sandbanks extended below it.
“A sunken island,” said the Queen. “The currents carried away its walls long ago.”
“I know it,” said Merle. “Sometimes you can still hear its church bells ringing.”
But today the ghosts themselves were silent. Merle heard nothing but the wind and the soft rushing of the obsidian wings.
10
THE LIGHT OF THE MORNING SUN WASN’T STRONG ENOUGH to brighten the Canal of the Expelled. Its light flowed golden over the upper stories of the houses but ended abruptly twenty-five feet above the ground. Below that, eternal dusk reigned.
The solitary figure hurrying from doorway to doorway was glad of it. He was on the run, and the half-light suited him perfectly.
Serafin stole along the fronts of the empty buildings, continually casting glances behind him to the entrance of the nearest canal. Anyone following him would appear there first, or in the sky above, on a flying lion. However, Serafin thought that was improbable. After everything that had happened in the Piazza San Marco, the Guard presumably had more important things to do—following Merle, for instance.
He’d recognized her on the back of the black beast that had charged out of the tower of the Campanile like a thunderstorm. At first he hadn’t believed his eyes, but all at once he was entirely certain: It was Merle, without a doubt. But why was she riding on a winged lion, and moreover, the biggest one Serafin had ever seen? The explanation had to be that it was because of the Flowing Queen. He could only hope that nothing happened to Merle. After all, he was the one who’d gotten them into all this. Why did he always have to stick his nose into things that didn’t concern him? If they hadn’t followed the lions to the house where the traitors were meeting with the envoy . . . yes, what then? Possibly the galleys of the Pharaoh would already be tied up at the Zattere quay and the canals would be reflecting the annihilating fire from the sunbarks.
In the hubbub and panic in the piazza he’d had no trouble ducking into one of the alleyways. However, it wouldn’t be long until the Guard had brought in the information that a former master thief of the Guild was living in the house of Umberto. By afternoon, at the latest, soldiers would be looking for him on the Canal of the Expelled.
Yet where else should he go? Umberto would throw him out if he knew what had happened. But Serafin reme
mbered what Merle had told him about Arcimboldo. Contrasted with Umberto, the mirror maker seemed to be a gentler master—even if Arcimboldo, after all the tricks they’d played on him, probably wouldn’t be too happy to speak to a weaver boy. It was a risk that Serafin accepted.
The boat Arcimboldo used once a month to take the new mirrors to their buyers lay tied before the door of the mirror workshop. No one knew exactly who his customers were. But who cared about a few magic mirrors? To Serafin, it all suddenly seemed unimportant.
The front door was standing open. Voices sounded from the inside. Serafin hesitated. He couldn’t simply walk in there. If Dario or one of the other boys ran across him on the way, it would be the end of all secrecy. Somehow he must manage to catch the mirror maker alone.
He had an idea. He cast a cautious look at the workshop over on the opposite bank. No one was visible behind the windows. Good. There wasn’t a soul in front of Arcimboldo’s at the moment either.
Serafin detached himself from the shadows of a doorway and ran. Swiftly he approached the boat. The hull was shallow and elongated. More than a dozen mirrors were hanging in a wooden frame construction at the stern. The narrow spaces between them were padded with cotton blankets.
Other blankets lay in a great heap in the bow. Serafin moved a few to one side, crouched down beneath them, and pulled them over his head. With a little luck no one would notice him. He would make himself known to Arcimboldo when they were under way.
It took a few minutes, but then there were voices. Among them, muffled, he recognized that of Dario. The boys brought a last load of mirrors onto the boat, fastened them securely in the support, and then went back on land. Arcimboldo gave a few instructions, then the boat rocked a bit more strongly, and finally it was under way.
Soon afterward Serafin peered out from under his cover. The mirror maker was standing in the other end of the boat and sculling like a gondolier with an oar in the water. The boat slid unhurriedly down the canal, bent away, went farther. Occasionally Serafin heard the traditional warning calls of the gondoliers crying out before they approached crossings. But most of the time it was utterly silent. Nowhere in the city was it so quiet as in the side canals, deeply embedded in the labyrinth of the melancholy district.
