We bolted, scattering. Half of my family ran forward, half ran back. Mab and I, close to the center, gripped each other, uncertain which way to flee.
“Prosperos, to me!” shouted Gregor, and he lifted his staff. Billowing blackness rolled from its rune-carven length, surrounding those of us who were with him. Near us the Hellwinds formed a small twister as it was sucked into Gregor’s staff. The smell was not as bad as the slimy bog, but was hot and dry and came with gritty particles that stung our eyes and made breathing difficult.
In the darkness I could make out at least one of my siblings heading back toward Gregor. Mab hunkered down behind Gregor and grabbed onto my skirts. Pulling the pins from my head, I wrapped my hair across my mouth like a veil, to filter out the grit. With my other hand I reached into the winds, urging my siblings to come to us.
The swirling ebony gusts picked up Mephisto and Logistilla as they ran, tossing them about like rag dolls. I could not see most of the others, but Ulysses was thrown backward as he raised his arm to use his staff. The winds slammed him headfirst into the stone banister along the bridge. His body went limp, and he was carried up, over the edge, and away into the darkness.
Theo’s armor gave him some ballast against the raging gale. He strode toward me, resisting the winds that threatened to push him backward. Cheering, I reached out for him, and our hands touched, his fingers warm against mine.
Relief rushed through me. To lose him again, now, when he was finally young and whole again . . . that would have been too much.
Then, he winced, his face crumpling in pain. In his urgency, he had reached out with his right arm, the sling being too flimsy to restrain him. His wounded arm was not strong enough to hold against the wind. His fingertips slid through mine and away.
Screaming, I watched his pale face until the winds carried him into the whirling darkness.
I still had my flute. I lifted to my lips and tried to control the Hellwinds, to deflect them or disperse them, but their terrible roar, like five squadrons of fighter jets, drowned out any attempt at music. Eventually, Mab pulled me down, and I huddled close to Gregor, my fingers gripping his crimson robes. Closing my eyes, I prayed into the empty chasm within me where once my Lady had been, begging for their safety and deliverance.
Then, the Hellwinds swept past us, and their roar became muted, like distant thunder. The shores were devoid of life, as far as my eye could see, and on the bridge there remained only four of us.
Except for Gregor, Mab, myself, and Erasmus, my family was lost.
Here ends Part Two
To be continued in Part Three:
PROSPERO REGAINED
In which we finally meet the Dread Magician Prospero, and Miranda learns the truth about many things.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Mark Whipple, Dave Eckstein, and Catherine Rockwood, without whose encouragement, this novel would have been abandoned in its infancy.
To Von Long, Diana Hardy, Erin Furby, Kirsten Edwards, Bill Burns, Dave Coffman, Jeff Lyman, Jessie Harris, Donna Royston, Robin Buehler, and especially Don Schank, for their support and advice, and to Danielle Ackley-McPhail and the Yesterday’s Dreamers, for all their useful ideas concerning the craft of writing itself.
To James Hyder, without whom this book would contain two copies of Chapter Seven and none of Chapter Eight.
To my wise editor, Jim Frenkel, and my noble agent, Richard Curtis.
To Lisa at Mama Lisa’s World (www.mamalisa.com/world), for her wonderful collection of Italian Lullabies, and to Ernestine Shargool, for her beautiful translations.
To George Bernard Shaw, whose title Don Juan in Hell, this one echoes.
And, most important, to my mother, Jane Lamplighter, without whose selfless devotion to her grandchildren this book literally could not have been written.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L. Jagi Lamplighter lives with her husband and children in northern Virginia, where she’s working on Prospero Regained, book three of Prospero’s Daughter. For more information, visit her Web site at www.ljagilamplighter.com.
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