Devil's Lair

by David Wisehart

  Giovanni wondered at it, then understood: this was the first moment, since falling into time, that Lucifer had felt the touch of God.

  CHAPTER 33

  Nadja chased Giovanni to the center of the universe. Cries of countless demons urged her on. In that Hellish din she heard a voice she knew. The voice of a dead man.

  “Run, Nadja! Run!”

  She did not look at Marco. She did not look at Lucifer. She kept her gaze on Giovanni and followed his lead. He was lit by the Holy Grail in his hands. Nadja saw him in silhouette, surrounded by an aura. Inky shadow spilled from the Devil’s wound and smudged the ice all around, but the black ooze parted like the Red Sea before the power of the Grail.

  When Giovanni reached Lucifer’s flank, he emptied his satchel, stuffed the Grail inside, and grabbed one of the Devil’s thick hairs.

  “Down here,” he said.

  Nadja saw that the hairs, protruding like great branches, created spaces where the ice did not meet the Devil’s body. Some of the gaps were large enough to slip through. Nadja watched Giovanni climb down into the ice. When he was gone, she could still see a glow rising from the relic.

  Before she descended, Nadja glanced back at Marco. He was standing on the ice, brandishing the Lance, surrounded by armies of evil: demons, harpies, hellhounds, centaurs, and Nephilim. He fended them off. One by one, he vanquished Lucifer’s minions. When the Lance struck, they fell or fled or vaporized. But for each demon demolished, another took its place. The Knight Templar fought on as if he were the world’s last hope.

  Nadja turned and made her escape.

  As Giovanni climbed down Lucifer’s hip, he felt a sense of weightlessness and knew he had reached the center of the universe, the place to which all weight was drawn. He turned his body around and climbed up toward Lucifer’s feet.

  At the level of the knees, Giovanni saw a rocky cavern. He and Nadja disembarked the body and together they rested, listening to the wails of demons echoing the among the rocks.

  “Where does this lead?” she asked.

  “To the antipodes. The far side of the world.”

  “The world has another side?”

  “According to Dante, the Earth is a sphere. We’ve already passed through the center. At the top of this tunnel is the mountain of Purgatory.”

  “What do we do?” Nadja asked, her breathing clipped by the arduous climb. “With the Grail, I mean.”

  “Hide it. Somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  As they continued their ascent, the Grail’s light diminished. The tunnel was steep, cold, and clammy. Giovanni grappled the rocky surface with hands and feet. Nadja followed. In the dim light Giovanni relied less on sight than touch, testing each position before shifting his weight. Every handhold was an act of faith.

  “We should give it to the Church,” Nadja suggested. “The pope will know what to do.”

  Giovanni rested, waiting for the air to sate his lungs. “The pope is captive to the French. If we give it to the Church, we give it to the king.”

  “Is he a bad king?”

  “The Grail would make him worse.”

  “Why?”

  “Avignon would rule the world.”

  Nadja frowned. “William would not have wanted that.”

  “They killed the Templars to find the Grail. A French king and a captive pope. Rienzo would have killed us to keep the Lance. Ambition is a rot in the heart of men.”

  “Who can we trust?”

  “No one,” Giovanni said. “Not even ourselves.”

  “Then what hope is there?”

  Giovanni recalled his encounter with Christophorous. “I have an idea.”

  He told her his plan, and Nadja agreed.

  The passage forked ahead. Nadja saw two arched gateways, one white and glistening, the other ashen like bone.

  “Which way?” she asked.

  Giovanni seemed uncertain. “Dante never mentioned this.”

  Nadja passed her hand over the polished white arch of the left gate. “I don’t see any markings.”

  Giovanni studied the other gate. “Me neither.”

  There was something odd about how the gate was made, Nadja thought. She had never seen this material before. “Look, Giovanni. What is this? I thought the gate was marble, but it’s something else.”

  He ran his hand across the smooth white surface. “Ivory,” he said. “Of course. I should have known. The gate of ivory and the gate of horn.”

  “Dante does mention it?”

  “No, Virgil. Aeneas came this way. One is the gate of truth, the other of lies. The Devil sends false dreams up to the world through the gate of lies.”

  “Which one is that?”

  “Ivory.”

  “Then we should go the other way.”

  “No,” said Giovanni. “Dante would have gone through the gate of truth, to the mountain of Purgatory, and then to Paradise. That will not take us home.”

  “The gate of lies, then?”

  “The path of Aeneas.” His face was grim, determined.

  “False dreams.” Nadja studied the ivory gate. “The Devil sent me false dreams. He told me to bring the Lance.”

  “Marco has the Lance. We have the Grail.”

  Nadja listened to the screams echoing from below. Marco was down there, warring with the demons. “He cannot win.”

  “But he can fight the demons to a draw.”

  “For how long?”

  “Forever.”

  They climbed for days, urged on by a faint light above and a bellowing rage below. Three times the light died and was resurrected. Nadja and Giovanni rested no more than necessary, and did not dare to sleep. At last they reached a narrow shelf at the mouth of the tunnel. The air was impossibly bright and smelled of the sea. They stood a moment below the opening, on the verge of the living world. The cool breeze was redolent of life and love and hope.

  Giovanni took Nadja’s hand in his.

  “Don’t look back,” he said.

  Together, hand in hand, they stepped into the light.

  CHAPTER 34

  A miracle, Petrarch thought as he tended the revested earth, which now bloomed with color and life. He poured water from a ewer, working his way down a row of bright eglantine along the wall, which had been repaired after the earthquake of September the ninth. Three weeks ago this garden had been a blight. He had left Padua on a mission to Venice, where flowers suddenly flourished and the pestilence subsided. Returning to Padua, he went straight to the garden to find that spring had arrived in autumn.

  “Francesco.”

  Petrarch turned and saw his majordomo in the portico. “Can you believe it?”

  “You had visitors while you were out.”

  “Who?”

  “The poet Boccaccio and that girl he traveled with. They left you a package. You’ll find it in the study.”

  Petrarch went inside and found a small wooden box on his desk. Curious, he picked it up, opened the lid, and discovered a chalice cut from stone.

  For a moment he wondered.

  Could it be?

  Then he shook his head and chuckled. Giovanni had a wicked sense of humor, but at least he paid his debts: one relic for another. This cup was far better than that pitiful Lance. Not a bad trade. Petrarch wondered if he would ever see Giovanni again. I’ll go to Florence next year, he decided. They could drink and laugh together. Giovanni would spin some outlandish tale to explain his discovery, and Petrarch would pretend to believe him.

  He lit a candle and carried his new treasure into the Hall of Grails. There were eighty in his collection. This made eighty-one. He found a place on a shelf between two matching cups. In a few days even Petrarch would not be able to tell one from another. As he walked away, his candle lustered the rows of Holy Grails on either side. Dapples of light danced about the room in radiant splendor.

  False dreams, he thought, and returned to the garden.

  ACKNOWLEDGEME
NTS

  I would like to thank my family for believing in me and supporting my dreams.

  Devil’s Lair was workshopped at the Barnes & Noble writer’s group in Valencia, CA. In addition to thanking the bookstore management and staff for hosting our weekly gathering, I am especially thankful for the feedback and advice of Barbara Jo, Jennifer, Maralyne, Marie, Jim, Teresa, Rebekah, Pam, Lee, Arlene, Karbari, Tammy, and the other occasional members of the group. I wish them all tremendous success in their own writing.