The Chamber of Ten

by Christopher Golden; Tim Lebbon

  “I’m not sure I—”

  Nico’s hand flashes out. He claws his fingers into the man’s robe and pulls him even closer, and he sees Il Conte turn his face away from the rotten smell of his breath. “I have been dying for a long time. What you do here today is of little significance to me, but vital for the city. You understand? This time is over, a new time is to begin. And it’s imperative that those three bastards are not allowed to even look upon this city again without fire scorching their eyes.”

  The standing man nods. He understands.

  “Vital!” Nico says. Volpe’s voice, Volpe’s grasp, and Volpe’s final moments. Because then Il Conte stands back and motions the other men around him, and together they raise their knives.

  This time when they bring their blades down into Nico’s stomach and chest, the view does not change afterward. Il Conte steps in and carves at the ruptured flesh, cracking ribs, ripping the chest cavity open, his face set grim and lips tight.

  And all the while, Nico is muttering words that he has heard before.

  Il Conte finally pulls Nico’s heart free, and there is no pain. The heart continues to beat, and even as the man slashes away the final connecting arteries, the muscle looks strong and healthy.

  But the Chamber bleeds. Blood flows from the ceiling, and Nico hears the men’s feet splashing in fluid that is too thick to be water. One of them brings an urn that Nico has seen before, and as Il Conte lowers the heart inside, his vision begins to blur.

  But he sees the Red Count’s final gestures over the urn, and he remembers them. From the hands of another member of the Council of Ten, he takes the severed hand of a soldier, dips its fingers into Volpe’s blood, and uses it to run a symbolic seal around the urn’s lid.

  Nico feels his body swaying and shifting as vision fades, sounds drift out, and then against all expectations the pain comes in, and—

  It was immense.

  Nico screamed. The boat nudged against a wooden jetty. Volpe rose in him again, and before Nico was shoved way down into his own injured body, he felt the old ghost’s rage.

  Leave alone what is not yours! Volpe roared, and then Nico knew nothing.

  XVI

  THE ONLY reason the bastard had let go of her hair was that it made it easier to walk.

  They’d already passed two groups of people who had protested at his treatment of her, and both times Aretino had merely glanced at Foscari. The first time, the other Doge had chosen one of the complaining men and beaten him, flooring him quickly and then stomping on his knees until Geena heard the sickening crunch of bones and the heavy silence of shock. The second time, Foscari had only approached the two young couples and they’d seen something in his eyes that made them flee. Such casual violence was nauseating, made her sick to her soul. But it also made her realize that these two men—if indeed men they still were—were totally in charge.

  Aretino walked ahead, his old man’s body moving with confidence. The white knotted beard and shriveled face were misleading. When he’d let go of her hair at last, he had not even instructed her to follow, but she knew if she did not she would suffer. Besides, Foscari was behind her. Close behind. Sometimes she swore she could feel his breath on the back of her neck, and she had felt his hand brush casually across her ass several times. And if I turn and punch him in the fucking nose? she thought. She had no wish to find out. Aretino had said they needed to talk, but he had not said she needed her knees unbroken to do so.

  She was terrified. That evening she had been stupid enough to believe that she could find a few hours away from this madness—from Nico and his crazy ghost, the deaths she had witnessed, and the fact that she’d been infected by some black magic plague less than twelve hours ago. Repair the foundations of the existence she and Nico had together, in the hope that they would be able to reconstruct the walls of their life when this whole bizarre mess was over. Now she saw how foolish she had been. And perhaps blind. Maybe she had been driven a little mad by what had happened, and though she had a mind that she thought was open and willing to explore, the certainty of what was happening might have been too much for her to handle.

  But that was nothing compared to this.

  She’d seen Nico burn a man to death by looking at him, and …

  And Ramus.

  She sobbed once and slowed down. Foscari walked into her—on purpose, she was sure—and grabbed her upper arms.

  “You shouldn’t keep Aretino waiting,” he whispered, hot breath in her ear. She shrugged him off and walked on.

  Hope. She had to cling to that. Nico had been shot, but it was Volpe who possessed him—a magician who had returned from a five-hundred-year limbo to cast his influence across the city once again. Nico had been moving on the ground even with a bullet hole through him, painting those weird signs against the Venetian night to protect himself against the Doges’ hired help, and surely that meant that Volpe was shielding him from the effects of the wound? Could he do that?

  Hope. Prisoner of two old men who should have died half a millennium before, she had little else.

  She tried to keep track of where they were taking her, but their route quickly became confused. After several years here she thought she had a good understanding of the city’s geography, but Aretino led them along alleyways she had never seen, into courtyards that might have changed little since he had been banished from the city, and she could only follow.

  Before long, any thought of making a break for it had gone. If she did run and somehow escape Foscari’s grasp, she would have to sprint to lose him in this warren of alleys and shadows, narrow bridges and small cobbled squares, and she’d just as likely emerge onto a dead-end before a canal. No, she needed a plan. She already had the sense that Aretino was the one with the power, and Foscari the more physical of the two. To escape them both, she’d need a plan that covered all angles.

  “Ahh, my old Venice at last,” Aretino said, and Geena shivered. It was as if speaking of the city he’d once loved and coveted brought its oldest places alive around him, shoving them back through centuries to a time that these men had called home. It was a foolish notion, but as they walked between buildings that leaned so close together that they almost seemed to touch, walls dripping with clematis and climbing roses, Geena desperately looked for signs of the present. Who knew what powers these men had? If they could defeat time by living to this unbelievable age, perhaps they could manipulate and mold it to their liking.

  How will he find me? she thought, imagining Nico even now scouring the streets and canals for her with Volpe’s help. If they take me back to their time, will he see me represented on some buried fresco? Find my bones in an old tomb he might uncover years from now? How will he even know it’s me? She had never felt so disassociated from her surroundings, an intruder in the city she had grown to love.

  Aretino paused and glanced back at her, smiling as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “This might interest you.”

  “Nothing you do or say can interest me,” she countered, but his wrinkled smile didn’t slip, so she added, “Fucker.”

  Aretino shrugged. “Maybe I’m wrong. We know so little about you, really, but what we have learned in the short time we’ve been aware of your existence—the short time we’ve known of that traitor Volpe’s tenacity and his hold on the one you love—leads me to believe you exist in the past.”

  He was listening to my thoughts! she thought. But no, it was merely Aretino’s manner of speaking. She knew what having her thoughts and mind read felt like.

  She did not reply. Foscari moved in close again and she pressed her lips tightly together, resisting the inclination to step away from him. He did not touch her, but he was so close that she could feel the heat of his body.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Aretino said, waving one hand dismissively. “When we reach our destination, I’ll tell you what you must do to preserve the life of the one you love, and also your own.” He turned and slipped through a short alley, and Geena followed.
They emerged on the other side onto a narrow path beside a canal, and she sighed with relief. One of the windows across the canal flickered with that blank silvery light that could only be a television, brightness rising and fading again as the picture changed. And from another window, she heard the shrill ringing of a phone, and then a brusque man’s voice answered.

  They were still in the present. Her imagination must have been working overtime.

  It was minutes later when Aretino opened an old door set in the façade of a building Geena had never seen before, that their journey back in time really began.

  “What is this place?” Geena asked, instantly hating herself for vocalizing her astonishment.

  They had walked through an empty, dilapidated room to a door set in the wall at the far side, plastered and painted over many times. Foscari had used a heavy knife to trace the line of the door—his knife strokes fast, strong, and unerringly accurate—and then Aretino had shoved it open. A breath of musty air, a staircase heading down, thirteen steps … and then this.

  “Just an old house,” Aretino said, dismissing a hoard of artwork that was probably close to priceless. Paintings lay stacked against one wall, and the lead canvas on one pile looked like something Masaccio might have created. Exquisite old furniture was piled against another wall, along with sculptures in various states of completion, one of which looked like a brass pulpit created by Donatello. On a huge table lay hundreds of scattered sheets of paper and canvas, stored carelessly and in no discernable order, and Geena glimpsed the unmistakable cogs and lines of a da Vinci. Gasping, trying not to reveal her amazement, she followed Aretino through the room.

  He was smiling. She could feel that even before he turned around.

  “Interested?” he asked.

  She did not answer. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. But she could not keep her eyes on him—she kept glancing to the left and right, thinking how much her friends and colleagues would give to spend some time in this room. Domenic would love the paintings, Tonio would be hugging some of the incredible sculptures she saw, and Ramus …

  Ramus never had been able to contain his enthusiasm. He’d possessed a love and fascination for old art that belied his young age. The last she’d seen of him was as that blond woman had been stabbing him, the murderous attack only fleetingly visible from the square outside the café. An attack at the Doges’ behest.

  “Don’t you want to know how?” Aretino asked.

  “Fuck you.”

  He raised his eyebrows—gray slugs over eyes that should no longer sparkle. “Manners have certainly fled since we were last here, don’t you think, Francesco?”

  Foscari, still behind Geena, placed a hand on her shoulder. He squeezed lightly, released, and squeezed again. She couldn’t help thinking that he was kneading her. It filled her with disgust, but she pretended he wasn’t there.

  “You want to tell me what a wonderful thief you were when you were alive?” Geena asked.

  “Not quite,” Aretino said, frowning slightly. “A collector. And a cautious one, at that.”

  “So when you were alive, you liked collecting?” Geena could see that she was getting to him. The old bastard’s eyes had changed infinitesimally, shedding a hint of smugness and taking on irritation. But if the best she could do was to irritate him … well, so be it.

  “Few people have seen any of these pieces since I was sent from the city by your Volpe,” Aretino said softly.

  “He’s not my Volpe!”

  “And yet you and he have copulated.”

  “No!” Geena said, but when she glanced away from the Doge and back again she saw the smugness had returned.

  “There are many places in the city like this,” he said, sweeping his hand around the basement. Its walls were dry, without any signs of damp, and she thought again of the Chamber of Ten. That place had been hidden away for so long, there was no reason now to doubt what the Doge was saying. “Not all are filled with such riches. One has a small table upon which rests a book that would change the world. Others, my old belongings. One place so close to the Doge’s palace that the same air circulates through its rooms has a single sealed box.” He paused and raised an eyebrow expectantly.

  “What’s inside?” Geena asked.

  Aretino smiled, lifted one hand, and before he could speak Geena snapped, “You’re just a dead thing!”

  The impact was sharp and sudden, yet not unexpected. Foscari’s fist was hard with knuckles knotted. Geena fell. She preferred being punched than molested, though, and as she sat up she looked at the Doge, exuding hatred.

  “Watch your tongue, Dr. Hodge,” Aretino said. “My cousin does not like women who speak out of turn.”

  Geena felt a sickening laugh gurgle in her throat. “All of this … just to get your things back?”

  “Not at all,” Aretino said. Smiling, he glanced around the room. “Don’t misunderstand; there are many pieces of our history that we are very pleased to be able to reacquire. Things that are rightfully ours. But there is only one thing in all of Venice that we truly needed.”

  “Access to the tomb of Akylis,” Geena said.

  Foscari stared at her in fury. Aretino arched his eyebrows in surprise and then smiled in approval.

  “It appears that Volpe has shared more with you than we had imagined,” Aretino said.

  He must have seen the surprise on her own face when she realized that Volpe had been telling the truth all along.

  “Ah, you doubted him,” Aretino said. “As well you should.”

  “Why do you even need Akylis’ magic?” Geena demanded. “You’ve lived six hundred years. If you have enough power for that, what more magic do you need?”

  Aretino’s dancing eyes grew cold and still. “We have spent five centuries surviving, when we should have been ruling. Volpe tried to end us, tried to exterminate our entire bloodline, but all he did was postpone the inevitable. Now our family will rise, and with the dark power Akylis left behind, we will cover the world. We will be the new gods and Venice the new Olympus.”

  Geena looked into those eyes and saw madness staring back.

  “But they’re all dead,” she whispered. “You have no family left. Just the two of you. Are you going to send thugs and assassins out into the rest of the world to try to take over? Even with Akylis’ magic—”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Foscari snarled at her, darting in close enough that she felt his spittle on her cheek. “We have family. Volpe took them from us, just as he took all of this—” He spread his arms wide, indicating the treasures in the room. “And all of Venice. But like the rest of it … we have taken them back.”

  Geena felt all the blood draining from her face. The tomb, she thought. The bodies. How many Foscari cousins, uncles, distant relatives had Volpe had killed and buried in that crypt under the building in Dorsoduro? A hundred? Two hundred?

  The Doges had stolen them back.

  “With the magic you’re taking from Akylis’ burial well …” she began, the truth striking her at last. “You’re going to raise them from the dead.”

  She tried to imagine it—two hundred Caravellos, Aretinos, and Foscaris resurrected and restored to life, filled with the dark power of Akylis and sent out into the world to conspire and manipulate, to magically influence governments and corporations, all to draw the reins tight on the entire globe and put them in the hands of the Doges.

  “This is a waste of time,” Foscari growled. “Show her, Pietro, and then let me show her what I have for her.”

  “You hear that?” Aretino said. “Francesco wants to rape you. You’re just his type, too. I doubt you’d submit without a fight.”

  Geena did not satisfy either man with an answer. Instead she examined her left hand where she’d grazed it as she fell, and brushed droplets of blood from another deep scratch across one elbow.

  “Bring her!” Aretino said, and Geena knew instantly that their game was over. Foscari grabbed her beneath the arms and lifted—his s
trength was impressive for someone over five hundred years old—and hefted her upright, half pushing, half carrying her after Aretino. They passed items of priceless art and antiquity, and though she struggled to remain composed, Geena could not help her amazement.

  They opened another door that had also been sealed shut and descended another flight of stairs. Geena knew that they were well below the waterline now, and she wondered whether whatever had held the waters back from the Chamber of Ten also worked here. From the vague memories of Volpe’s that she’d seen and sensed, these Doges were mere dabblers in magic when they were banished, not master practitioners like him.

  She was curious, but she did not want to ask.

  At the foot of this new staircase was a small chamber, hacked from the ground without any aesthetic consideration. Its walls were uneven, ceiling and floor rough, and it was barely ten feet across. At its center stood a small wooden stool. On the stool was a sealed clay container. The container bore no marks or decoration, and the clay looked delicate.

  “This,” Aretino said, gently touching the urn, “is our protection.”

  “I’m really not interested—” Geena began, and Foscari thumped her in the kidneys. She went down to her knees, biting back a groan but closing her eyes as the pain tore through her torso. Bastard bastard bastard! she thought. She remembered Volpe jamming his knife under Caravello’s chin and up into his brain, and she so wished she had a blade.

  “Just tell her and get it over with,” Foscari said, his voice heavy with something other than anger. “Then I’ll have her before we send her back.”

  Geena’s eyes snapped open. Aretino glanced from her to the Doge standing behind her, but she could not read his expression. He’s in charge, she thought. A word from him and …

  “It’s delicate,” he said, touching the urn again. “It has to be. When the waters pour through and these walls come down, it has to break. Even if it doesn’t, its salt seal will dissolve over time and release what’s inside. But the sort of revenge I’d want … I’d need it to be quick.”