by Brian Craig
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Zaragoz
As these visions became more bizarre he dreamed that he saw Arcangelo's body tumbling into the pit, where it had been hurled by Semjaza's angry magic, and saw the rats crowd around it, fighting one another for the privilege of tearing at the spellcaster's flesh. In his dream, Orfeo tried to help the man, desperately grabbing at the rats to push them-back, but wherever he pulled one rat away two more would take its place, and he felt as if he were submerged beneath a living deluge of the creatures.
Then, in his vision, he saw Arcangelo come to his feet, bloodied from head to toe by a thousand tiny bites, and stand as he had in Rodrigo Cordova's ballroom with arms outstretched, commanding their silence and obedience with the sheer force of his personality—and he saw the rats fall back then, confused and humbled.
He saw, too, another ragged army of the shadows, pale and yellow-eyed, prancing in the distant shadows, equally eager to hear the words of the preacher which their brutal gods had sent to them from the lighted Heaven outside their dark and pitiful world. And mingling with this throng of white-furred apes were the indistinct forms of daemons, which seemed to be carved out of shadow—horridly unnatural things with limbs like spiders and stings like scorpions and heads like horned lizards. Some, though they went upon two legs and not four, were nevertheless used as mounts by humanoid figures whose faces the dreamer could not see.
All these denizens of the underworld beneath Zaragoz waited to hear what their prophet would say to them. And what he said, in his voice like terrible thunder was: " Zaragoz is doomed!"
The cry seemed to ring in Orfeo's ears until it saturated his whole being, and drove away all other sensation, so that when it finally dwindled away in a confusion of echoes, he was abandoned to peace and silence, and to the mercy of ordinary sleep.
When he awoke again, Marguerite Cordova was by his bedside, watching over him. She called for servants to bring him food, and stayed with him while he ate.
"You are safe now," she said. "You are a guest in this house, and our protection will not fail you a second time."
He knew that she was sincere; but he also knew that something had been set inside him which would not let him stay in the house, 167
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and would take him back to the castle to please those who would make a toy of him. Whatever curse had been put upon the house to make it resentful of diAvila enmity and the magic of Semjaza's kin could not touch the obligation which Morella d'Arlette had inserted in his very soul. His friends had saved him from the white apes of the underworld, but he might need more powerful allies than the House of Cordova to save himself from Morella d'Arlette's destructive amorousness.
When he was fed, and his wounds had been tended, Rodrigo's mother left him, and sent her son to take her place.
Rodrigo asked if he was ready to tell his story, and Orfeo said that he was. Briefly, he described the events which had unfolded around him—his kidnapping, his torture, his imprisonment, his release, his involvement with the attempt to rescue Serafima Quixana, his duel with Sceberra, and his adventure in the dim-lit cavern.
"I will find the servants who betrayed me," said Cordova, fervently. "They will suffer for what they have done."
"They did not move against you," answered Orfeo, in a placatory manner. "In delivering me to Sceberra, they were serving another loyalty, to their duke and his minister. It is not your servants who seek to harm you but your master."
"What do you mean?" asked Cordova, uneasily.
"When I heard Marsilio diAvila speak, I knew that the order to kill Calvi and take you prisoner came from his own lips."
"Are you certain of this?" asked the young nobleman, in obvious distress.
"He has a charming manner, has he not? But I think that what his people say of him is true—he is a cruel man beneath his finery, and one who does not care at all about honour and justice."
"But why? I hope to marry his daughter, and he has never discouraged the match."
"It was nothing to do with that. He wanted you made safe because he did not know whether the curse that was placed upon the house of Cordova would take effect in the walls which surround us or in the blood which flows in your veins. When Semjaza worked magic within its walls to hurt Arcangelo he awakened something-some power which had lain dormant here since the fall of the Quixanas. Semjaza has always known of it; it is not just the books 168
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in your library which have drawn him so often to this house. He knew that Arcangelo came here in order to awaken the force of that curse, and when the priest escaped from the cell where he was supposed to be safe, even Semjaza became afraid, and took what precautions he could. The war between the diAvilas and the Quixanas has always been fought with magic as well as with swords, and Semjaza had reason enough to fear whatever legacy the defeated Quixana wizards may have left behind them."
"But it is over now, is it not?" said Rodrigo, uneasily. "The priest of Law has been defeated and destroyed. He must have been killed, for I cannot believe that Semjaza would have let him go a second time."
"Nor can I," replied Orfeo. "But there is a saying in the Empire, which says that although the honest strength of men dies with them, their magic may seek vengeance from the grave. Arcangelo's plans took account of the possibility of his death—or so he told me when he spoke to me."
"But Serafima Quixana no longer needs saving! The criers are out in every quarter of the town, declaring that her betrothal to Tomas diAvila will be celebrated on the Night of Masks."
"Aye," said Orfeo, in a low tone. "And there is one in the castle who intends that my own betrothal will be celebrated on that same eve—but I do not think that the lady intends a long and happy marriage, and I am not sure that Serafima Quixana's fete will be any less unpleasant. We are flies, my friend, caught in the tangled folds of two magical webs—and we may none of us escape if the spinners of those webs are to be drawn by their conflict to mutual ruination."
"What would you have me do?" asked Rodrigo. "My family has ever been loyal to the diAvila dukes, and I love Veronique diAvila. But even if I wished to do it, I could not use this house to launch an attack on the castle, as the diAvilas did in the distant past. I have no army, remember—nor any wizards either."
"No," said Orfeo. "If I am asked for honest advice, I can say only this: go to the castle for the Night of Masks, as you would have if you knew nothing of this. Make love to Veronique diAvila, as you would have. Forget what I have told you about Marsilio diAvila, and behave towards him as if you had never heard it, seeking no revenge for the murder of Theo Calvi. If you are lucky, 169
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the Duke will consider that there is no further need to move against you, and will offer you hospitality that will make you as safe as any other of his subjects. But afterwards, take your mother to another city—and do not be in a hurry to return here. Once a man is suspected as the instrument of a curse, he is always in danger from those who fear the curse."
"That is hard advice to take," said Rodrigo, in a sombre way.
"For what is a man but the house he owns and the estates whose produce belongs to him? I was made to be a nobleman of Zaragoz, not a mere vagabond without a name or home."
He meant no insult, and Orfeo took no offence. The player merely sighed, and said: "Then stay, my lord, and wait for whatever comes. But see your mother safe, I beg of you—and do not let your affection for Veronique diAvila draw you into the horrid cult of which she is a part. And when you go abroad in this realm which makes your name a thing of quality, do not carry a sword which is a mere ornament—wear the best weapon which you have, and pray that when you are called upon to use it, you have more art than those who come against you."
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Chapter Thirteen
Orfeo remained in his bed for two days and two nights while the pain of his wounds eased and he recovered his strength. The third dawn brought the day whose eve would be the Night of Masks, and on that d
ay he rose and dressed himself. Then he took up his lute to discover whether his injuries would affect his playing.
At first his arms were very stiff, and he was discomfited by the various scratches which had been inflicted by Sceberra's blade and the apes' sharp teeth, but as he drew pleasant tunes from the instrument—recalling memories of happier days in other courts and in the wild woods of Bretonnia—these pains were soothed away, and the stiffness with them. The gentle magic of the music put new heart into him, and in the afternoon he left his room, intending to go down to the narrow garden which clung to the ledge beside the house, to bathe in the bright sunlight for a while.
As he made his way down through the house, though, he passed the room which was used to store the books and scrolls which had been deposited in the house by generations of scribes and petty wizards. He saw that the door of this room stood ajar, and could not resist the temptation to open it further and look inside.
On the far side of the table, with his back to the window, sat Semjaza.
The wizard looked up, and when he saw who it was in the 171
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doorway his strangely-contorted face moved into a grotesque parody of a smile.
"Master Story-teller!" he said, as warmly as his voice allowed.
"I am delighted to see you recovered."
Orfeo, at first, could find nothing to say, but merely stared.
"Ah!" said the sorcerer. "You are surprised to find me here.
Do you think I should shun the house, because Arcangelo tempted me to awaken something which lay dormant in its walls? On the contrary—it is all the more reason to come. The study of magic has been my life's work. Please sit with me for a while. Do not be afraid of me, for I have never meant you any harm. I even gave you good advice, which you should have taken, and thereby saved yourself a measure of pain and grief."
Orfeo closed the door behind him, and came further into the room. He did not like to be with the wizard, forced to look into that hideous fece, but he knew that Semjaza was at the very centre of the secret society whose members included Morella d'Arlette, and must be the prime mover in the plot which had ensnared him.
"Had I taken your advice," said Orfeo, "I cannot imagine that my circumstances would now be very different. I would be appointed to play at the castle on the Night of Masks, and I believe that the lady Morella would still intend to place me under an obligation."
Again Semjaza tried to smile.
"I believe she would," he said. "But you have been drawn into the game, and now must play it. There are only two ways forward—as a victim, or as a player. It would be a pity to waste a man like you in the mere slaking of Morella's lusts. Were you to ally yourself with me, you might be heir to a more enviable state. You have intelligence, and—so I am told—a very delicate touch with lute and blade alike. Most important of all, you have courage. You faced me well when I questioned you, and you do not shrink from me now, despite the horror which you feel for what you think I am. Y>u pose as a gaudy man and a lover of women, but there is more to you than that, and you might make something of yourself if only you could raise your sights above the tawdry show which common men call the world."
"I am a common man, my lord," Orfeo replied, levelly. He remained standing, but he made no move to leave the room.
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"And so was I, once," said Semjaza. "I had a father and a mother, and a brother and a sister. I bore another name and I wore another face. But that was long ago. I am not a common man any longer, and you know full well that I do not mean that some petty and vainglorious king or duke has dubbed me knight or marquis. There is another aristocracy, whose honours are not so lightly won, and whose authority far exceeds the petty power-play of wealth and lawmaking."
"There are as many tales to tell of that aristocracy as of the other,"
Orfeo said. "It is my work to collect and make them. I hear and tell of necromancers whose play with the dead becomes by degrees an obsession with the grave and all things cold and grisly, and whose powers of destruction are in the end dissolved by madness.
I hear and tell of those who make treaty with daemons, who become the most hated of men, and who are in the end destroyed by those they sought to conjure and control. It is difficult to envy those whose authority is bought at such cost. If the wisdom of lore and legend is to be trusted, the only happy wizards are those who bind themselves to the harmony of nature, who are as much servants as masters of the forces intrinsic to the material and living world."
"And is it your opinion," asked Semjaza, silkily, "that the wisdom of lore and legend is to be trusted?"
"After its own fashion, yes," answered Orfeo. "I would not trust blindly what I learned from a tale, so that I could not recognize a plain truth which stood in contradiction to it, but I would be a sorry fool if I refused the lessons which have come from the lives and deaths of thousands of my forebears, on the grounds that I had not had the chance to learn them for myself."
"The experience of common men," said Semjaza, "is shaped and spoiled by ignorance and fear. Whatever they do not understand they hate, and the lessons they pretend to learn are but the reflections of their own stupidity and cowardice. The so-called wisdom of lore and legend is a travesty of the truth, and I believe that you are too intelligent a man not to know that in your heart."
"I am only a common man, my lord," Orfeo replied, steadfastly,
"and I am heir to my fair share of ignorance and fear. But I know that there is pleasure enough in life, if only a man has enough to eat, women to love, and music for dancing."
Semjaza shook his head. "I do not need to touch you, Orfeo, 173
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to know that you are lying now. I can sense the feeling which is in your heart, and I know that for you, that is not enough. It is not even pleasure enough. You are a more inquisitive man than that—a man who finds fascination in questions and answers. You are a man who cannot discover a door which is ajar without wanting to look at the room within, especially if the room is full of books and scrolls."
Orfeo could not deny it. He said: "I am inquisitive, it is true.
But I am not the kind of man who can take pleasure in hurting others. The power to do evil does not attract me."
"You think that I am an evil man?" said Semjaza, seemingly more amused than annoyed.
"I do not know you," said Orfeo, "but I think that the powers upon which you draw are evil, and very dangerous."
"Dangerous, to be sure," acknowledged Semjaza. "But it is not sensible to call them evil. Evil is a word which humans have made to describe what hurts them. It has no meaning in the greater world, which lies beyond and outside our own."
"It is in our own world that we live our lives," said Orfeo.
"Whatever daemons may be in their own world—of which I know nothing—I believe that their intrusion into ours is invariably evil, and that whoever calls them from beyond does evil's work."
"You are wrong," said the wizard, flatly. "The way of thinking which deals in good and evil cannot contain the truth of what the world is truly like, and cannot measure the rewards of seeking that truth."
"Advise me, then," said Orfeo. "Tell me the truth, and explain what rewards there are in the worship of forbidden gods and intercourse with daemons. I am, as you have argued, inquisitive enough to ask the question, though I may not like the answer."
Semjaza leaned forward, intently, and the stink of his breath was suddenly sharp in Orfeo's nostrils. Though the closeness of the dreadful features seemed threatening, Orfeo knew that the magician was not trying to frighten or browbeat him. Whatever madness or malice was in the man was quiet now, and there was a sincerity in what he said. Orfeo realized that in a peculiar way, Semjaza was asking for his understanding, desirous that he should acknowledge the supremacy of the wizard's world-view as well as the power of his magic.
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"Do you see the crack in the wall yonder?"
asked Semjaza, pointing a thin finger at a place which was bare of shelves, where there was a line running across the stone, no broader than a hair.
"I see it," said Orfeo.
"Within that crack there is a world. Just as there is a tiny world inside this crag, where the rats and the white apes live, so there is a tiny world inside every nook and cranny of the world which men call their home. In the world within that crack live tiny insects barely visible to the human eye, and each tiny insect has a rutted back whose every groove is a world where tinier things exist.
"Our world, Master Story-teller, is the merest crack in a world immeasurably greater, where there are powers which could grind it into dust with no more effort than you would need to draw a fingernail along that crevice. Every time you crush an insect beneath your heel you destroy countless tiny worlds, and this world in which we live might at any instant be obliterated by the casual, unthinking movement of some being too monstrous for our tiny minds to comprehend. I am not speaking of daemons, which would be equally trivial to such a being, nor even of gods; I am speaking of the true nature of things.
"While we speak, countless worlds tinier than ours are being born and speeding to their destruction. What seems but a trivial moment in lives such as ours is a near-eternity in the lives of tinier beings. By the same token, what seems to us a lifetime, or a vast reach of history, or the lifespan of a world entire, is but an instant in the greater time which measures that world of which ours is but a minute part. The eye which looks upon such a world cannot notice the blink whose duration contains the ages of a thousand worlds like ours.
