Prospero Regained

by L. Jagi Lamplighter

  Even better, as we sat and ate, the self-cleaning enchantments woven into our garments had an opportunity to work their magic. Within a short time, Gregor, Titus, Erasmus, Mephisto, and I all wore clean clothes. Theo and Caliban were dressed in garments taken from Mephisto’s thugs. That meant only Mab still looked bedraggled, his trench coat and fedora caked with mud and stained with bog water.

  Titus took a bite of one of the protein bars. “Riding on that bird got me thinking … all those swan maidens you brought home, Erasmus. How did you find them? You must know something about dealing with Fairyland. Any chance of seducing someone who could bring us more Water of Life from the elvish court?”

  “No luck there,” Erasmus replied. “Not unless I could seduce one of the Queen’s Ladies, or the Queen herself. The kind of girl you can trap by sneaking up and stealing her cloak isn’t given access to Water of Life.”

  “Not a good idea.” Mephisto slumped down until he was practically lying across the tube.

  “The Elf Queen Maeve is actually the Queen of Air and Darkness in disguise,” Mab said glumly.

  I managed to take a sip of soda and pass the can to Theo without spilling the precious liquid. Mephisto was not so lucky. He sat up, spitting his grape soda across the tunnel.

  “How did you find out!” He looked about frantically. “I don’t think I’m supposed to know about this!” He stuck his fingers in his ears. “Not listening. Not listening. Not listening.”

  “Is she really?” Erasmus cut himself a slice of sausage. “How amazing! The same woman we saw up in the sky in that flying chariot? The one who’s after Mephisto?”

  Mab glanced at Mephisto nervously. “Harebrain’s right. It might be better if we didn’t talk about the Queen of Demons in his presence.”

  Lilith, the Queen of Air and Darkness, seemed to rise like a specter before me. Was she my mother? Was I some half-demon monstrosity who had to be controlled by Father’s magic lest I turn and rend my family?

  No. I did not believe it!

  I would not believe it.

  Unfortunately, this hypothesis fit the facts. It explained “M,” and Theo’s theory and Malagigi’s observations. And yet, deep down, I did not believe it. Deep down, I believed in Father. I believed he was not the sort of man who would cast a spell upon his beloved daughter, and I believed that no Demon Queen could fool him, at least not for very long.

  But I could be wrong. I had been wrong about Ferdinand, about Ulysses, about so many things.

  I deliberately returned to Titus’s subject. “What about Fiachra? I saw him at the New Year’s party. Could he help?”

  Erasmus shook his head. “Not highly ranked enough.”

  “We could try their quests. I, for one, still think that’s a splendid idea.” Theo patted his staff. “There must be some task on their Questing Board that we could accomplish.”

  “What’s a Questing Board?” whispered Caliban to Mephisto, but the latter still had his fingers in his ears.

  Mab whispered back, “It’s where the elven court posts tasks they want done. If you accomplish them successfully, they reward you with Water of Life.”

  “Don’t know how they’d take our getting involved.” Erasmus took a bite of sausage. “What we need is the backing of a member of the High Council. I can’t really help there, but maybe we could sell them our sister. She’s damaged goods anyway.” He turned toward me. “How long do you have to wait until you find out if you’re pregnant with a half-demon bastard?”

  With no preliminary warning, Theo hit him. He punched Erasmus in the face. I cheered, but this did not take away the feeling of having been slapped. Silently, I prayed to whatever power was listening that there would be no unpleasant consequences from Osae’s attack.

  “Not the nose again!” Erasmus cried as blood gushed down his lips and chin. “What are you hitting me for? I’m not the one who’s responsible!”

  “You do not talk about our sister that way.” Theo crossed his arms and glared down at Erasmus. “Ever.”

  Erasmus started to reach for his staff, but the rest of the family was glaring at him as well. He slumped back against the wall of the lava tube, one hand pressed against his face.

  “I would make a big deal about this,” Erasmus muttered, “except I’ve decided to give you a pass for having just lived through a dunking in the Lava of Wrath. Really, though, Theo, after seeing where anger can lead a person, it might behoove you to curb your temper.”

  “Maybe Miranda could marry her elf!” Mephisto suggested, paying Erasmus and Theo no heed. He had taken his fingers from his ears and was shoveling nuts into his mouth. “She saw him at Christmas, you know. They danced together and then slipped off into the night … alone!”

  “You have your own elf?” Gregor looked up from the protein bar he had begun to unwrap. He had stopped to read the ingredients and had been puzzling over some of the substances listed. Whatever Ulysses had fed him on Mars, apparently it had not come in brightly colored packages.

  Mab frowned at me. “Never did get to ask you where you went that night at Santa’s.”

  “Astreus took me on the back of that same star-swan Mephisto just called up. We flew to Hyperborea, where he gave me a copy of the Book of the Sibyl,” I said.

  The Elf Lord’s name tasted sweet in my mouth, and my heart soared at the chance to speak it—so much for having put him from my mind!

  “The Book of the Sibyl!” Theo cried. “After all this time!” Then, he winced as he recalled why I no longer needed it. “Quite decent of him. Any idea why he did this?”

  “The Lord of the Winds had heard a prophecy that a Sibyl of Eurynome would free the elves from their oath to Hell.” My voice dropped. “He was hoping that Sibyl would be me.”

  “Wow!” Mab whispered. “You didn’t tell me about this, Ma’am! Released from the tithe to Hell. Could a Sibyl do that?”

  “Sibyls can absolve oaths,” I replied.

  “Wouldn’t that be glorious?” Theo’s eyes glittered. “What a coup that would be for the Powers of Good!”

  “Well, then. It’s settled.” Titus gave a big smile. “When we go back, our sister can marry this elf. No reason for her not to, anymore. Surely, a member of the High Council will have access to Water of Life.”

  “Let’s just hope that he is not as stingy with giving it out to his relatives as Miranda is,” Erasmus quipped, but he was smiling with almost no trace of his customary smirk.

  “I don’t know,” Theo growled. “Is this elf good enough for our sister? We’ll have to check him out.”

  “Take it from me,” Mephisto cried cheerfully. “He’s the best!”

  A lump the size of one of those boulders we had seen souls of the dead carrying formed in my throat. Twice, I opened my mouth to explain that Astreus was dead, subsumed by Seir, but somehow I could not, not here under these awful conditions. Should we make it home in one piece, there would be time enough for Mab to mourn his dead lord.

  “Freed from the tithe!” Mab murmured, awed. “Lost a lot of my people to the tithe over the years. I had a—well, you’d call it a cousin—who got tithed many millennia ago. Never heard from him again. The elven monarchs picked on us for a time, used to tithe us Aerie Ones exclusively.” He lowered his head. “Lord Astreus saved us. He gave up all chance of returning to Heaven in order to protect us.”

  A warmth spread through me that had nothing to do with our proximity to the lava fields. So, Astreus had been telling the truth! He had told me that he endured a thousand years being tortured in the Tower of Thorns—a place where I could not have lasted for ten minutes—rather than forswear Heaven, only to yield to his captors’ demands when they threatened to tithe his people, the spirits of the air, to Hell.

  Mab himself was one of those saved by his selfless act.

  Theo turned to Gregor. “If their oath to Hell were absolved, could the elves return to Heaven?”

  “Theoretically.” My brother the former pope stroked his neatly trimmed beard.
“The doctrine on the redemption of elves is sketchy at best.”

  “There’s doctrine on the redemption of the elves?” Erasmus laughed.

  “Of course,” Gregor replied. The rest of us exchanged glances and laughed.

  No wonder Astreus took the time to copy the Sibyl’s book by hand! I recalled the way he had spoken of Heaven and how his eyes had burned with golden fire when he described how he had once been an angel. So great was his desire to return that even the slight hope that I might someday become a Sibyl who could absolve his oath had been enough to stave off the darkness that otherwise would have devoured him.

  Suddenly, I wished fervently that Astreus were not dead! Or that I had not squandered our last minutes together quarreling with him.

  “I’m no use to him anymore.” I hung my head in shame. “Nor would he have married me, for he cared nothing for me. He was only interested in finding a Sibyl.”

  “He did so care!” insisted Mephisto. “He promised me he’d marry you. I wasn’t going to have my sister seduced and abandoned by an elf!”

  “Promised you?” My jaw dropped. “When was this?”

  “I must say I’m impressed.” Erasmus cupped his newly injured nose; his voice sounded odd. “I had no idea you had an elf suitor, Miranda. And a member of the High Council, too! Good work!”

  “Might have been a marriage worthy of you,” Gregor acknowledged with a curt nod.

  In all my years, my brothers had never approved of any suitor for my hand. I did not know what to make of it.

  “Can elves marry?” Caliban asked, as he shoved an entire protein bar into his mouth. “The fairy tales and literature all emphasize their capriciousness. Are they capable of being faithful?”

  Erasmus tipped his head back, still trying to stem the flow of blood. “There’s been at least one tremendously successful marriage between elves and men, you know. Back in the twelfth century, Fincunir the Clever married a mortal maid named Oonagh, said to be among the most beautiful women ever to grace the earth. Last I heard from Fiachra, they were still together.”

  “When did Astreus promise this?” I asked again.

  “When we first met,” Mephisto responded.

  “Back in 1627?” My mind reeled at Mephisto’s news. “How strange! But he told me elves no more woo mortals than hawks court doves.”

  Mephisto frowned, and Mab cleared his throat.

  “Begging your pardon, Ma’am, but that doesn’t quite make sense. Lord Astreus has … well, a bit of a reputation for romancing mortal maids. A number of the great artists and poets of the world are descended from him.”

  “Really?” That stung a bit.

  No wonder he had come forward so quickly to dance with me that first summer’s night. I recalled how he had laughed, mocking his fellows for not seizing the opportunity.

  What would it have been like, I wondered, being Lady Astreus Stormwind? I pictured us flying among the stars, or sipping elfwine on a balcony of his palace in Hyperborea, or diving over the edge of the world, hand in hand, to see what brave new worlds might lie beyond the brink.

  Delightful as these images were, however, the idea became less enticing when I considered our life at home. I imagined him pacing, bored, while I worked in my office, or, worse, sitting cross-legged atop the back of an armchair, his intent, ever-changing eyes intimidating the shareholders at a board meeting of Prospero, Inc.

  On the other hand, I would have loved to see the expressions of our supernatural clients, the gnomes and nymphs, and even the troublesome djinn, when we showed up for contract negotiations with a Lord of the High Council!

  As for home life, what would it be like to hear the halls of Prospero’s Mansion ringing with the laughing voices and pattering footsteps of little elflets—elflets from whom future world-renowned artists and poets might spring? So, subtle, clever Fincunir had been married to the same woman for nearly a thousand years! Could we have done as well?

  No, I realized sadly, it would not have been like that for us, because Oonagh gave up the mortal world to dwell in fairyland, but I was constrained to stay on earth and run Prospero, Inc., in order to protect mankind. I might have been able to fit in a trip to wonderland once a century or so. The rest of my time would be spent in Oregon, running Prospero, Inc., while Astreus gallivanted about the universe, appearing on my doorstep only when it suited him—if it suited him at all.

  After all, he was an elf. Once he departed, I would never know whether or not he would return. Would he remember me? Or get caught up in the moment and tarry elsewhere, perhaps with some fresh mortal maid—forgetting me as Erasmus feared his son Fiachra might forget, were he not constrained to visit every New Year’s Day.

  I sighed and closed my eyes. It was all a dream, of course, a flight of fancy. There was no future for Astreus and me. Even if some miracle restored him to the sunlit realms, such a union—seeing him for a few days here and there, never knowing if he would return to me—would be unbearable, especially once the Water ran out and I rapidly grew older.

  I might come to love him, and he might grow to love me, but happiness would be impossible.

  “I wonder why Astreus said such a thing?” I mused aloud. “About hawks and doves, I mean.”

  “To throw you off guard,” Mephisto chirped. “That’s trick seventeen from the Book of Seduction. You take some girl who would normally want to send you packing and convince her you couldn’t possibly be interested, so that she starts wondering ‘Why not?’ Next thing you know, she’s eating out of your hand like a trained deer. Works every time.”

  That lying elven devil! My cheeks grew red as my brothers regarded me in amusement. How dare he toy with me! And how dare he be dead, and thus conveniently escape my wrath!

  “It’s not very easy to train deer,” mused Titus.

  “Book of Seduction?” Caliban lowered his slice of sausage. “Where can I get a copy?”

  “Just a joke.” Mephisto giggled as Caliban’s face fell. “Besides, Astreus wouldn’t have wanted to seduce you, Miranda! Then you would not have been a Handmaiden anymore. He was biding his time.”

  Oh! As if that made it better! Why had I not taken the opportunity to slit his throat when he had offered it!

  “Aren’t you going to make a speech about not cavorting with elves, Bodyguard?” Mephisto had gone over to Titus’s bag and was rummaging around, pulling out a squished candy bar, which he quickly consumed.

  Mab cleaned his ear with his pinky. “Well, funny thing about that. Mortals marrying elves, bad business. No good can come of it. But frankly, we now know Miss Miranda isn’t a mortal. She’s half witch or something.” He turned to Caliban. “Your mother wasn’t merely a human witch, was she?”

  “She was part human, but only part,” Caliban replied. “Her father was an ogre.”

  “If you’re one of us, Ma’am … that changes a lot.”

  Ah, the irony! How nice the idea of having Sycorax as my mother now seemed. No matter how repugnant that heritage, it was preferable to being the daughter of the Queen of Air and Darkness!

  “Where are the others?” Titus interrupted, licking the last of the chocolate coating from his protein bar off his fingers. “Where are Logistilla, Ulysses, and Cornelius?”

  “We don’t know yet,” I replied. “You four are as far as we’ve gotten.” I turned toward the others. “I recommend we do the same thing we did before, and go next to whomever most needs our help.”

  “I think we should go after Cornelius next,” Erasmus said, wiping his mouth. “It must be terrifying to be in Hell and not be able to see your way around.” He paused and cocked his head. “On second thought, might be nice to not be able to see the sights. If he’s not in pain, he might have no idea how bad things are.”

  “I hate to think of Logistilla all alone in this terrible place,” Titus said quietly. “She must be frightened.”

  “But doesn’t that make you happy?” Mephisto asked, confused. “I thought you hated her!”

  �
�Not at all,” Titus objected, surprised. “One doesn’t start hating one’s wife just because she turns one into a bear for a few years. I was just angry about the children.”

  The rest of us stared at him.

  “If you say so,” murmured Erasmus. “Though I could hate someone for far more frivolous reasons.”

  “Wife?” Gregor glanced from one face to another. “I thought we were talking about our sister—my twin!”

  Erasmus held up a staying hand. “Don’t ask!”

  Gregor’s brow darkened. He and Titus regarded one another suspiciously. Again, his protectiveness toward Logistilla warred with his hard-won serenity. Erasmus shook his head, dark hair falling into his eyes. He brushed it aside, muttering. “Oh, this isn’t good!”

  “Ball, show me the member of our family who is in the most trouble.” Mephisto quickly shoved the ball between Gregor and Titus. Immediately, the light illuminating the tunnel winked out. Instead, the crystal globe showed an image of a naked Ulysses running over a steep rocky landscape. Behind him, the ground seemed to be writhing.

  “Ulysses next, then,” Theo said decisively, as Mephisto instructed the ball to show us daylight; a pleasant glow again illuminated the lava tube.

  “Theo and Caliban,” Titus asked as he rose, stretching, “what happened to you when the Hellwinds hit?”

  Caliban said, “We held on to each other as the winds drew us together and dropped us in the lava. I climbed out almost immediately but had to go back in to help Theophrastus. After that, there was nothing to do but wait and pray.”

  An wave of affection for the big man swept over me when he described voluntarily jumping in to the bubbling lava to rescue Theo. I was glad I had given him the extra Water.

  “How could you survive in that heat, even for an instant?” asked Gregor, aghast.

  “Far as I can tell,” Caliban answered slowly, “there was no real lava, only burning wrath. The calmer I became, the cooler it got around me.” He lowered his head, chagrined. “Unfortunately, I am prone to wrath, so I did not escape unscathed.”

  “What amazes me,” commented Erasmus between bites, his eyes resting speculatively on the bog-dipped chocolate, “is that your club survived. Isn’t it just made of wood? I would have expected it to go up like a match.”