Prospero Regained

by L. Jagi Lamplighter

  “Dante mentioned ‘foul icy rain.’” Caliban had hunched his shoulders against the inclement weather but it did not seem to be doing much good. Water dripped from his nose. “But he puts it in the Third Circle with the Gluttons.”

  “Maybe it moves, like real weather,” offered Ulysses.

  “He said it was ceaseless,” Caliban said.

  “If so, we missed that, for which I am grateful,” Erasmus sighed. “Let’s find a place to get out of this and see if it passes.”

  * * *

  WE found an overhanging ledge and huddled against the rough stone. The sleet barely missed us. Occasional gusts of wind blew the cold spray into our faces.

  Gregor growled. “To quote Erasmus quoting Mephisto: what I need right now is a good whack from a cheer weasel.”

  “Of course!” Mephisto tapped his staff. “The cheer weasel! Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “You mean there really is such a thing?” Erasmus looked up in surprise.

  I began to imagine that a rainbow-colored length of something leapt about upon the dreary gray rocks. Moments later, it was with us. The cheer weasel was as long as an ordinary weasel, but it was much fluffier, like the Persian cat of ferrets. Instead of brown or white fur, it had horizontal stripes of bright rainbow colors. It had eyes like shiny black beads, and its ears were unusually large. Instead of a little black nose, it had a huge red ball. All in all, it looked like a weasel designed by a clown.

  “How … ghastly!” Logistilla drew back. Yet, after a cursory examination of the creature, she could not help chuckling.

  “Here goes!” Mephisto called out, and he whacked Gregor across the face with the cheer weasel.

  The cheer weasel elongated as it swung. Imagine swinging a creature made out of pompoms strung together by elastic. Its nose swelled, becoming even larger, and it let out a delightful noise like a child’s squeaky toy. Gregor’s face disappeared behind rainbow-colored fur.

  Gregor squawked. Then, a smile began lurking at the corner of his mouth. A moment later, his face relaxed into an actual grin. “Interesting!”

  “Does it really work?” asked Erasmus.

  “Here, try it yourself.” Mephisto whacked Erasmus across the face with the cheer weasel.

  * * *

  WHAT followed was a cheer weasel free-for-all, with occasional gusts of icy rain blowing this way and that. Each of us grabbed the weasel and whacked someone else with it. Being whacked with the thing produced a giddy sensation. First, I received a face-full of soft fur. Next, a happy tingly feeling started at the top of my head and spread down my spine until even my blistered feet felt cheerier. Two hits, and we were singing with glee.

  And, once I got my hands on the thing, it was great fun to swing it and feel it stretch out as it struck someone else’s face, emitting its funny, squeaking sound. I had the most fun whacking Mab and Theo and Titus … though the noise Ulysses made when I caught him full in the mouth with the rainbow fur was one I will remember for years to come. I would have liked to smack Erasmus with the thing, too, but the weasel must have sensed that there was not enough cheer in that particular desire, for it wiggled out of my grip. Then, Ulysses had it, and he was whacking Cornelius, who sat down, giggling like a schoolboy who had been caught doing something naughty.

  After a time, our sides ached from laughing. Mephisto reclaimed the cheer weasel and draped it about his neck like a multicolored furry muffler. The rain had finally stopped. We set off again at a good clip, talking in overly loud voices, all speaking at once, as we discussed what had happened to each of us since the bridge. Whenever one of us began to lag, Mephisto would whip the weasel off his neck and smack the malingerer across the face with a mouthful of multicolored fur.

  Conversation stopped for a time as the slope became steeper. We crested the saddle between twin peaks. It was cold and snowy, and there was no life anywhere: neither bird nor insect nor a single soul of the damned. Just rock and snow and horizon. Far below, we could see the curving highways of the Cloverleaf from Hell and some of the greenery of the nightmarish forest. Beyond that rose towns such as Infernal Milan, all of which looked like tiny models in a museum diorama.

  Starting down again, we headed at a brisk pace for a pass Mephisto had seen in the ball. We surfed down a section of loose scree and then found ourselves on a downhill path that zigzagged back and forth across the slope. The long, shallow switchbacks made our downward progress extremely slow, but they also made this stretch of the path far easier than what had come before. We found we had some breath available for conversation.

  Mab pulled out his notebook and flipped open to a blank page. “It occurs to me that this might be a good time to ask some questions.”

  “What did you have in mind, Detective?” Erasmus asked. He walked behind Cornelius, prodding him gently with his staff whenever the latter veered off the path. Our group still traveled in two sections, with Theo and Erasmus exchanging dark looks whenever they came near each other. “Anything is better than being left alone to contemplate our personal miseries in silence.”

  “I want to compile a list of the tasks Mr. Prospero gave each of you,” Mab explained, scribbling as he walked. “Miss Miranda’s duties, I know. She’s in charge of Prospero, Inc. The company is responsible for making and maintaining contracts with spirits so as to subdue them and make the earth more amenable to human beings. Am I right? Or is there something else, too?”

  “No,” I laughed, though the cold wind cutting across my face did much to reduce my good mood. “That is quite enough.”

  “And you, Miss Logistilla?”

  Cornelius cleared his throat. “I hate to curb your enthusiasm, Spirit Creature, but is this conversation wise? Would it not be better that we each keep our own counsel? Especially here in Hell, where our words could be overheard?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that, Mr. Cornelius. Just take a look around.” Mab gestured toward the empty barren rocks. “Even the demons don’t seem to like it here. Not an imp or an incubus in sight! Might be the only privacy we get down here.”

  “Still,” Cornelius continued, “I must counsel against spilling family secrets. There may be reasons why Father did not want us to share them.”

  Mab scratched his eternal five o’clock shadow. He now looked less unkempt than many of my brothers, since they had not shaved in several days. “I understand your reluctance, Mr. Cornelius, and I hate to be a harbinger of doom, but if we fail to rescue Mr. Prospero, and something happens to one of you … well, knowing what the dead guy’s duties had been might become important to the survivors—and the human race.”

  Cornelius walked along tapping the stony path before him with his long cane. His head was tilted, as if in concentration. Finally, he spoke. “You have convinced me, Spiritling. The needs of the future outweigh any consideration of secrecy. Carry on.”

  “Good!” Mab grinned. “Miss Logistilla?”

  “I make bodies for Father’s ‘great project.’ Ouch!” Logistilla cried as Titus stepped on her foot. A buffeting with the weasel combined with the winds had loosened her hairpins. Her long black hair now flowed freely down her back. Titus braided it for her as they walked, except this meant that he kept treading on the back of her shoe. “I have to design each so that it matches pictures Cornelius brings me. I’ve gathered quite a collection of them now, waiting against the day when Father asks for them.”

  “Interesting.” Mab made a note. “And the Perp … er … I mean Mr. Ulysses?”

  “I nick stuff,” Ulysses offered. Of all of us, he seemed the least disturbed by the cold and miserable conditions. He was shivering, but he seemed as cheerful as ever.

  “You steal for Mr. Prospero?”

  Ulysses shrugged. “You know how keen the Orbies are on keeping magic talismans out of circulation? Well, someone’s got to be the one to pinch them from the current owners and put them in the Vault. That someone happens to be me.”

  Seeing us all staring at him, Ulysses gestured at
his Staff of Transportation. “You don’t think the Guv’nor gave me this old thing so I could impress ladies with the Hope Diamond at parties and imprison my favorite brother on Mars, do you?”

  “How could Father condone such a thing?” Gregor demanded. “Stealing is a sin! It is breaking a Commandment!”

  “Father seems to condone a great deal of things that don’t sit well with the Commandments,” murmured Theo.

  Mab said, “Rewriting history, for instance. Isn’t that Bearing False Witness?”

  “I leave money!” Ulysses objected hotly. “Of course, I get to decide what the thing is worth, but I’ve taken quite a few appraisal courses, and I fancy myself a fair hand at estimating the value of things.

  “As for the Commandments, I’ve never really put much stock in that sort of truck.” Ulysses paused to glance around nervously at the striated rocks of solid misery. “Of course, I’ll give it a great deal more thought, now! Definitely don’t want to have to come back here! Still, I think I nab things for a good cause. ‘Salvation of Mankind’ and all that.”

  “How can you call yourself a Prospero and not honor the Commandments?” Gregor shook his head in disgust. Theo also looked appalled, but Erasmus chuckled. Theo frowned severely at Erasmus, and the two glared at each other until a turn of the path put a rock wall between them.

  It was one thing for Erasmus and me to bicker; it was quite a different thing for Theo to be angry with him. While Theo was often grumpy, he was seldom on bad terms with anyone, except Mephisto—the two of them were forever sniping at each other, but it was a brotherly sniping, usually born of Theo’s concern for Mephisto. This new tension between him and Erasmus, since we left Dis, was beginning to disturb me.

  Meanwhile, Ulysses was saying, “Oh, I was devout enough when I was a lad, back when I lived with Guv’nor. But, then, all this traveling around … I’m good with places, but not with times—this was before these modern alarm watches—I started missing the occasional church service. Then, every other one and then, I plum forgot to go.

  “Then, one day,” Ulysses continued, “I read this article that explained how little independent evidence exists for the Bible, the New Testament anyway. Apparently, we don’t have any contemporary sources, other than the Bible, for the existence of this Jesus chap. He’s mentioned in some ancient books, Josephus and the like, but scholars discovered those references were forgeries added several hundred years later. So, I began thinking maybe this Savior chap never existed at all. Why should I have to go sit on a hard bench and hear some old bloke drone on about him?”

  “That is our fault,” Cornelius sighed. Then, he gasped as the rainbow-colored weasel whacked him in the face.

  “No sighing or pouting!” Mephisto declared, wrapping the little creature about his shoulders again and feeding it a bit of honey from his pocket, which he had apparently filled with the sticky stuff. The creature nuzzled Mephisto’s ear with its big red nose and licked him fondly with a thin black tongue. Meanwhile, Cornelius chuckled in spite of himself.

  “The crime you’re talking about, Corney, took place nearly two thousand years ago,” Ulysses objected. “I’m still shy of my two hundredth year. You can’t pin that one on me!”

  “Me neither!” Mephisto shouted gleefully. He put honey on his nose and giggled raucously as the cheer weasel licked it off.

  “By ‘our,’ I meant the Orbis Suleimani, which would include you, too, if you ever showed up for meetings.” Cornelius addressed Ulysses. He tried to speak sternly but, due to the weasel’s lingering influence, a smile kept creeping onto his face.

  “Sorry, old boy, the schedule thing…” Ulysses waved a hand. “What do the Orbies have to do with all this Jesus stuff?”

  “In the early days of the Christian movement, the Orbis Suleimani removed references to Christ and His miracles from historical documents, the same way they have removed references to other gods and magic,” Cornelius began.

  “The Orbis Suleimani weren’t Christians back then?” Ulysses interrupted, surprised.

  Cornelius halted in disbelief, his cane still dangling before him. “The organization was started by King Solomon of Israel!”

  “Oh. Quite.”

  “As I was saying,” Cornelius regained his dignity. “In the third century, a leader of the Orbis Suleimani known as Claudius Nocturnus was healed of a club foot. Claudius converted to Christianity and took the rest of the Orbis Suleimani with him. Once they became Christians, they regretted the work their predecessors had done covering Christ’s trail—including editing Josephus—so they sought to undo the damage by putting back what had been removed. Only they had not kept proper records of the original wording, so they wrote their own version.”

  “So it was a forgery, but only because they were trying to replace the original reference, which they had removed?” Ulysses shook his head. “Far too confusing for the likes of me!”

  * * *

  THE easy but very long switchbacks ended, and we began traipsing straight downhill in single file. Across the valley into which we descended was the entrance to the pass for which we headed. It seemed such a shame that we had to descend all that way just to rise up again, but even with the influence of the cheer weasel, Mephisto could not get any of his winged friends to fly here. The moment he summoned them up, they began shrieking or shivering or curled up into a ball. The only animal he summoned up that seemed unaffected by the Mountains of Misery was the weasel.

  Disappointed, we started down into the valley. Once we were underway again, Mab returned to his subject again. “So, Mr. Ulysses, you collect magical talismans?”

  Ulysses nodded. “Exactly, taking them out of the hands of men and demons alike!”

  “That is where the new items in the Vault came from!” I exclaimed suddenly, thunderstruck as his words finally registered with me.

  “Right-o!”

  “Wow. That’s … amazing,” I choked out.

  A great many explanations for how new talismans, such as Gungnir, were making their way into the Vault had occurred to me. None of them had included the possibility that my wayward youngest brother was out there doing his part for the family.

  Titus rumbled. “Ulysses finds them, and I guard them, making sure that no one, including Ulysses, can steal them. I also go to the location of a magical disturbance and stop it with the antimagical aspects of my staff … Gregor’s staff, now … but only if it’s such a massive disturbance that it will still be going on once I get there, which is seldom the case, nowadays. Unless Ulysses happens to be nearby and can give me a ride.”

  “This job you were doing, keeping the magic guarded”—Mab fixed his eye on Titus—“it wouldn’t happen to involve a dollhouse?”

  Titus looked rapidly around at the silent skyscrapers, as if to make certain no one was listening. “Shhh! Do not speak of that here! It’s your duty, now, Gregor. I’ll tell you all about it, if we get out of here alive.”

  “Very well.” Gregor nodded grimly.

  “The Vault!” Titus struck his forehead with his palm. “Damn you, Logistilla! What a fool of a woman!”

  “Please do not wish my sister any closer to Hell than she already is,” Gregor growled, moving closer to Logistilla, who raised her nose in the air, giving Titus the cut direct.

  Titus turned, towering over Gregor. “Did anyone explain to you that when your sister turned me into a bear, she left me that way for two years? During those two years, the work I was doing for Father went undone. I had been using my staff to guard the Vault and keep the demons from it. Who knows what might have gotten in there while I was gone.”

  “Seir of the Shadows, for one,” I murmured.

  “If Father had only told the rest of us about this,” Theo frowned, “Logistilla might have known enough to see to the problem.”

  “Or she might have told Ulysses, and the demon they worked for,” Erasmus countered smugly. “And they might have tried to kill Titus, too.”

  “Oh!” Theo looked embarrass
ed. “Good point.”

  As we climbed a steep incline, I thought about my recent trip to the Vault. At the time, I had wondered why the fourth pedestal in the Elemental Chamber was empty. Now, I knew where Ophion, the Serpent of the Wind, was. Rather than solving matters, however, this discovery had opened the question of what had happen to the demon whom everyone thought had been in the instrument.

  If Father felt that each of Solomon’s demons needed a keeper, so much so that when he decided to give up the Staff of Transportation, he went to the trouble of siring a son, Ulysses, solely for the purpose of giving the staff to him, then he cannot have left Vinae just lying around somewhere. He would have bound him into some object and given it to a family member for safekeeping.

  Oh. Of course.

  “It was King Vinae!” I declared.

  Two things happened simultaneously. First, Erasmus spun around and stared at me, a gleam of great interest in his eye. Second, Caliban bent his head, so that his cheek and nose rubbed against his club, and made a low shushing noise.

  “Yes?” Erasmus left the path and moved closer, over dangerously loose rocks. The gleam in his eye unnerved me. “What about him?”

  “I was just trying to remember his name,” I equivocated.

  “Ah, Vinae.” Erasmus stepped back onto the path. He pushed his dark hair from his eyes and smiled dreamily. “What I could have learned, what I could have achieved, if Father had allowed me even a few minutes with him! But Father feared Vinae. He’d had some kind of bad experience with the demon in his youth, and didn’t trust either himself or me to be anywhere near him. Which is why I thought Father had relegated Vinae to his lesser function of calling up storms, trapping him in the Staff of Winds.

  “Only, if Baelor’s correct—and under the circumstance, there’s no reason not to believe him—Vinae’s not in your flute.” Erasmus gave a light self-mocking smile. “And to think that all these years I envied you and coveted that instrument. What a waste of my energy! Still,” he concluded, “King Vinae would have made an excellent Staff of Wisdom.”