City of Corpses: The Dark Avenger's Sidekick Book Two (Moth & Cobweb 5)

by John C. Wright

  “Then you seek to undo the Black Spell? The Anarchists will keep faith with the Last Crusade and free mankind?”

  Malen turned away. Her stag now stood still. One of the tall green mounds was before her. Malen raised her hand, and a trumpet note from a horn unseen blew dim but clear from below the soil. At once a doorway opened in the mound, and a tongue of ground, grass and all, reached down into the dark, gem-studded depths. A faint melody, but fair to the ear, whispered up from below, and there seemed to be little winking lights in the far distance of the passage sloping into the heart of the hill.

  A delayed thought reached Yumiko. She said, “Wait! Garlot keeps girls in bottles? How is this? Who are they?”

  Unseen hands now plucked Yumiko from off the back of the black stag and flung her roughly toward the grass. She somersaulted in midair and landed on her feet. The parcels and packages, now weightless, swirled like autumn leaves into the air, spiraling high and low, and then danced into the corridor. The black stag pranced after, following music Yumiko could not hear.

  Malen was still on the white stag. She gazed down at Yumiko. “I release you from my service. You have bemused and amused me this day, worked without complaint, and so I let you keep your human shape, as I agreed with the Magician to do. I will grant you this favor, and answer your two questions, and one more. Three in all. Hear me.

  “Yes, my brother keeps a treasure chamber where he lolls in comfort on rugs of slain smilodons and tigers after he had boiled himself in the Crystal Cauldron of Youth, which closes all wounds and restores all lost blood. There he keeps the fairy maidens he has captured from Troynovant. They are not half-breeds like you, but true fairies, but who were caught trespassing into the human world. And there is one little Moth, whom Garlot caught for Lucien but decided instead to keep for himself. None is bigger than a pinky, and he hangs the bottles from the top of his amber-walled chamber and uses them as lanterns. To shed the light that keeps them small surely strains and pains the poor dears, but they cannot come to full size again, caught in such strait vessels, so what else can they shed, but tears?

  “As for your other question, the world was designed to grow continually as man multiplied, but the elfs steal the new lands that arise shining from the sea and wall off the new hemispheres to expand into new directions, crowding men into ever more claustrophobic and violent and narrow spaces. Like rats crowded into ever smaller mazes, their bloodlust rises. My power grows.

  “The Black Spell can be overthrown in two ways, one by adding light and the other by adding blood—namely, by adding a horror too great for the human mind to dare to cover with amnesia. Half a hundred have been slain by wolves in New York, shocking crimes unnatural, in ways that touch man’s most ancient fear, and so the sleepwalkers stir and murmur in their sleep. Soon they wake! Ask of me a third question.”

  Yumiko said, “Why would the Anarchists free the humans?”

  Malen laughed in scorn. “Why would jackals crop grass like oxen? They would not. The Anarchists free no one. When the leash is yanked from Erlkoenig’s hand, do not imagine the Sons of Adam will slip the collar. A stronger hand will take his place. That is all.” Now her smile became so dreadful that Yumiko felt queasy. “Does Euhemerus Cobweb imagine his wispy fingers will be that? Or Rotwang’s metal prosthetic? Or what Zahack has in place of hands?”

  Yumiko realized that these were the names of the Supreme Anarchists. Malen was so contemptuous of the doings of Moths and Cobwebs that she truly did not care whose secrets she spilled to whom.

  Malen was still talking, delighted with herself. “The Anarchists are fools. Mere pawns. As if Twilight could overthrow Night! I am one of the eldermost of the Night. So we name ourselves in sorrow and self-scorn because once, long ago, before nightfall, light was with us. But there is a darkness deeper than mere nighttime in which all memory of light is lost.”

  Yumiko stammered, trying to grasp the implications of these terrible revelations, of treason within treason. “Then the Last Crusade…”

  “Are fools to think an Anarchist keeps his word! What faith, what fealty, what honor does anarchy not seek to break? Fools twice over to think the Anarchists will surrender their captive once they have the Ring of Mists!”

  Yumiko’s heart leaped. “The captured Crusader is alive?”

  “Yes, but in the City of Corpses, among the dead. And the Last Crusaders are fools thrice over to hunt Winged Vengeance, and unwittingly lead the Anarchists to where he hides! The moment the vigilante is found, and the crusader no longer useful, Sir Garlot will strike down Sir Gilberec from behind, unseen, by ambuscade and stealth. The wolves will cease to be slaughtered! The wolves will multiply. This great, gray city will drown in blood; the Black Spell will break, shattering human brains as it shatters. Then shall all the human world go slowly mad to see all their nightmares real and solid and standing in the sun.”

  Malen smiled again, evidently pleased at Yumiko’s expression of horror.

  “But I have shocked you, poor dear! We cannot have that! Three gifts I granted, in answering answers three: and now in turn I take one gift from you to me. I take your memory. Let all you have heard from me and seen, fade when we part like a passing dream!”

  Yumiko was unable to move or blink. She was trapped by the gaze of Malen’s terrible gray eyes.

  Malen leaned closer. “Do you think I share my confidences with a serving girl? But it is pleasing to gab and gossip, and so I asked the Magician which of his girls needed fewer memories.”

  And still laughing merrily, Malen kicked her white stag, and down into the world below the green mound she went. The stag leaped in great bounds, but the elfin lady, sidesaddle and bareback, did not even bother to put out a hand to steady herself, for gravity did not dare to dislodge her.

  In sudden silence, the hillside door closed, and the slope was only grass.

  4. The Charm of Forgetfulness

  Yumiko found she could move again. Trembling, she walked away from the mound. The strange, terrible eyes of the Red Lady were an afterimage before her; the eerie, cruel music of that beautiful voice echoed in her ears.

  At first, nothing happened. She remembered the conversations clearly.

  It was when she reached the edge of the great lawn and came into the shadows of the trees that it began. As silently as venom in wine, Yumiko felt the charm of Malen spreading fog in her mind.

  It was like small and silent flakes of black snow in her thought, and wherever any snow landed, it covered and benumbed the memory beneath so that it was lost to sight. Yumiko forgot what Malen had told her about the albino elephants while the two walked in the rooftop jungle. She forgot why Malen had given her the red parasol or what had become of it. Then, she forgot Malen asking the stone face on the wall for directions to the riot and then forgot what Malen had told her about the ravens and their part in her quarrel with her sister, the Morrigan.

  Yumiko stepped from the path, knelt on the grass, cleared her mind, and made her soul quiet and still. She concentrated on controlling her breathing until her awareness of her breathing faded away.

  The trees were no longer taller than redwoods, and if any villages, mansions, or towers were among the leaves and branches above the great lawn she had just left, they were hidden. The mounds crowned by monoliths were gone. The baseball diamonds were back. The sense of being trapped in a dream was gone. Never had she felt so clearheaded and awake.

  Yumiko emptied her mind and let her soul grow utterly quiet.

  She found that she was losing no more memories. Any thought she did not think could not be taken from her. The evil charm was held at bay.

  Yumiko stood. She moved as carefully and slowly as a girl balancing a vase of burning acid on her head, for a sense of lurking, patient malice was still all around her, almost palpable, cold as an unseen snow cloud.

  Did she dare to put on the Ring of Mists here, right at the gate to a buried elfish kingdom? For she was apparently in the middle of an invisible crowd of elfs. Male
n had said who dwelled in these towers, but as soon as Yumiko recalled her remark, it was gone. Yumiko put her hand in her sash and fished around. She found the ring and slipped it on, turning it with her thumb. Perhaps if it fended off ghosts, it could fend off this. But she kept her hand hidden as she did.

  The sense of being ringed by unseen eyes faded, but the sense of being inside a cold cloud did not. How could she think or concentrate to plan a strategy if whatever recent memories the thought brought with it were erased from her mind?

  A silent inspiration entered her mind without thought, without concentration. She remembered the boy who had escaped when all around him had turned into trees by saying a simple prayer. This memory did not fade. God is great; God is good… And the charm did not remove these words from her head. The memory of the frightened boy praying did not vanish.

  She said the words aloud, reciting them as if they were a mantra, merely a focusing point for her mind to unleash some power inside her. A clear intuition told her this was wrong, backward. These were not magic words. The thing could not be done by reciting phrases without meaning.

  Silently, she said the words again, and, this time, she thought of the several things the Red Lady had said about the Galilean, about Arthur and Merlin, and about the shed blood which turned the roaring victory of darkness into their greatest defeat. Was not the power of Heaven which saved that unknown boy from the charms of Malen the same power which raised the dead? It greatness and goodness were beyond measure.

  The cold cloud was gone. The memories were no longer fading. Nothing like black snow was any longer blotting out the words she had heard or the scenes she had seen.

  Then, she remembered the words of Matthias Moth, the young blackfriar. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Behold, I give unto you power over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

  She said this as well. Before she finished, indeed before she even began, she knew she was free.

  In the distance, above the traffic noise beyond the trees, she heard the bells of the cathedral tolling the hour.

  A feeling of awe, of puzzlement, but also of a childlike willingness to accept everything given her without puzzling over it, flooded her. She had defeated Malen’s invincible magic! Easily, almost without effort, she had overcome one of the older powers of the Night World.

  A sense of gratitude bubbled up in her heart like a well from underground, like a geyser, like a volcano. Because it had not been her, had it? Something had come to her aid. Or someone, rather. Someone great and good.

  Usually, Yumiko hid her mouth when she smiled. Usually, she showed no expression on her face. Now she spun in a circle, gay and giddy, and laughed until tears of joy trickled down her cheeks.

  She danced and spun until she came to a little arched bridge above a stream. Looking down, she saw her reflection. Yumiko leaned over the railing. Her hair had come loose of its ribbon while she danced, and it hung down like a waterfall of shining night, framing the narrow oval of her features. In the reflection, she saw her resemblance to a fox indeed in her high cheekbones and the sharp chin.

  “I remember my mother’s name.” She said down to the face looking up.

  Dandrenor. The lips of the smiling image below her moved as she said the name. The face was smiling and lit up with immense joy. Yumiko had never seen so pretty a face.

  Except for one. Like a light bursting into brilliance in a dark room, a fragment of memory, clear and sharp, rapt her.

  Yumiko saw her mother’s face.

  Chapter Eleven: The City in the Summer Stars

  1. In Memory

  Because the sight was in her memory, the sudden sting of tears in her eyes made the scene of tree and park, bridge and stream blur and swim, but it did not blur her mother’s face.

  Her mother’s face was unlined, and her skin was smooth and clear, but her eyes were filled with the serenity and sorrow of wisdom not found in youth. Her face was oval, her features were clear cut, and her chin came to a delicate point. Her eyes were the color of the sea.

  A wimple covered her hair and shoulders, held in place by a silver fillet at her brow and a silver broach beneath her chin in the shape of a fish. The trains of the white robes fell in long curving lines to the floor as did the flowing sleeves like great white wings. Embroidery as delicate as dewdrops seen on a spiderweb strand was woven through the panels made of ivory, milky, and silvery threads, and the pattern of images could not be seen when looked at directly, only from the corner of the eye. The hems and lining were red. Yumiko knew this red fabric was not a sign of joy and celebration as it would have been in her father’s home in Japan. It was the sign meant to honor the memory of martyrs. Neither was the white robe a symbol of mourning, but of purity.

  In the memory, Yumiko stood with her mother at the intersection of two colonnades. The pillars were so tall that their capitals were lost in the bellies of the clouds above. These clouds were dark and lowering, wonderful shades of slate and spun wool and charcoal. In the breaks of the cloud could be seen stately planets like colored lanterns dancing the rounds of their cycles and epicycles.

  Between the planets hung a two-tailed comet, bright as a torch, perplexing astronomers, which presaged the doom of the high and sacred city of Sarras.

  Above all this curved the vaulted azure dome of the chamber, which was more vast than any chamber of earth, more vast than earth itself. Images of crowned and haloed martyrs, each holding the weapon or tool that had tortured or slain him, as if robed in sunset-colored clouds, stared down through the constellations decorating the lower reaches of the dome. Now and again one who was not an image peered down also.

  Yumiko and her mother stood atop the dais reached by three steps. The bottom step was white marble clear as a mirror, the second black onyx, the top porphyry red as blood. Atop the dais was a cupola held up by four white posts. Midmost was an altar. Atop this was a cup of white gold, and all the lights in the chamber were gathered to it.

  Light came from this cup. It must have just that moment been uncovered by the cloth of gold folded behind it because in Yumiko’s first memory of the scene, she was still blinking, her eyes not acclimated to the blaze. The inner surface of the small, flattish cupola dome was hammered silver, and these mirrors cast the cup’s light back at it, redoubling its brightness.

  Yumiko recalled her mother’s voice. Dandrenor was saying, “The Sangreal was brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea, whose sister, Enygeus, wed Bron the Fisherking. He fathered Mordrain the Hermit King, who was the father of Merlin the Thaumaturge. Yglais, the sister of Merlin, wed Phanes, the son of Malen the Red War Queen. Phanes fathered Pellehan, who fathered Pellinore, my father. Ere she was wed, Enygeus was the first Grail Maiden and kept the watch. After her came Sarrasintë, Yglais, and Esmerée the Fair. Now I keep the watch, and I have not been relieved of that duty.”

  Yumiko said, “I will not be apart from you, Mother! Not again!”

  Dandrenor seemed not to hear. “Here it is. Behold the source of your woe.”

  Yumiko looked. Despite herself, she was awed by the beauty of it, the loving craftsmanship. Never had she seen so fair a thing.

  The bowl of the vessel was a hemisphere carved from a single monstrous ruby, nine inches across. The million facets sparkled and blazed as a hemisphere of red fire. About the mouth and down the sides of the bowl ran bands of white gold wide and thick. A massy stem of white gold connected this red bowl to its foot, a ruby hemisphere so lucent that the cup seemed to stand stop a dome of flame.

  Celtic knots of rose gold wire intertwined images incised into the white gold bands. Red against white shined figures of a lamb, an ewer, an ear of wheat, a torch, a grape leaf, a door, a shepherd’s crook, a crown. Above and around were letters in three languages: Yod, He, Waw in Hebrew; Alpha and Omega, Chi and Rho in Greek; INRI in Latin. These gold bands formed curving crosses reaching from stem to mouth. At the crux of each peered a cameo of ivory outward in four d
irections: the head of a bull, a lion, an eagle, a man crowned with rays. The cup mouth was hidden beneath an ornate gold lid topped with a tiny cross.

  “It is very precious,” said Yumiko. In the memory, her point of view was closer to the ground. How long ago had her mother died?

  “The seen is but a visible shadow of the unseen,” Dandrenor said as she tilted open the lid of the cup. “It has no luster save what is granted to it.” Yumiko now saw that the diamond and gold vessel was not the cup itself, merely a container to hold it.

  The real cup was a drinking bowl made of glazed clay nestled in the mouth of the diamond vessel. It was plain and dun.

  “It is just clay.”

  “As are you. Look again. Look with your heart.”

  When she looked again, it seemed different. Now Yumiko saw what she had thought was clay a substance finer than ivory, more pellucid than mother of pearl. Heat as gentle as a kiss hovered over it. Yumiko realized it was alive.

  “What makes clay so white?”

  “The fire in the heart of its master was hotter than any kiln or star. This cup caught its master’s blood as he was dying, and the blood is the life.”

  “If this is the cup of life,” said Yumiko, “why is it hidden?”

  “It is life to those who are washed, penitent, and prepared, who have put the old life by. But who drinks of this cup unworthily, drinks to himself damnation.”

  Yumiko scowled. “I missed you. Every day. Other children had a mother to tuck them in, to kiss their hurts, and to take them to the festivals of O-Bon and Christmas and to see the fireworks. Father said you were living in the clouds. The village boys said that you were dead.”

  “I visited you in your dreams each night.”

  “It was not enough. I remembered only scraps and bits when I woke. Why did you let him take me? Uncle Hosshin and Uncle Mubo taught me to pierce targets, not to arrange flowers. I was raised by three soldiers who lived in a quarry at the mouth of an abandoned mine next to pools of blue poison, hunting goblins and ghosts who escaped out of the mineshaft! In the village below the mountain, in school, or in motion pictures, I would see beautiful girls in their finery, with their gentle laughter and graceful steps. All the boy’s eyes followed them. No one’s eyes were on me. I was invisible! A mother seen in dreams was not enough. Not enough! Why did you let Father take me from your arms?”