The Chamber of Ten hc-3

by Christopher Golden

  “All right,” Volpe said, breaking off a piece of biscotti. “But enough of your skepticism. Accept what is before you.”

  She nodded for him to go on.

  “In the time of my youth, the Doge ruled Venice, but he did not have absolute power. Beneath him was the Council of Ten, and beneath them the Senate. Often the Ten exerted a great deal of influence over both Doge and Senate, so any man who could control the Council of Ten could chart the course for Venice himself.”

  “And you were that man,” Geena said. She had seen much of this in the visions she had shared with Nico, which she now knew were flashes of Volpe’s memory connected with parts of the city.

  Volpe’s smile sent an icy shiver down her back.

  “I was. For many years of beauty and enlightenment, far beyond the standard human life span, I controlled the Ten. They saw me as their most trusted advisor, and in that role I manipulated them to my own ends, and through them the Doges as well. From time to time, a Doge would discover his own ambition and attempt to assert his power. Those who could not be controlled were ruined. But over the time of my influence, there were three whose ambitions were greater, and darker, than any of the others, ruthless men whose desires reached far beyond the limits of Venice, and who would have sacrificed anything to fulfill those desires.”

  “And you stood in their way,” Geena said.

  “Each of them ordered my assassination, at least once,” Volpe said. “They failed, of course.”

  Geena took this in, sipping at a glass of water the waitress had brought. “Caravello,” she said. “Aretino. Foscari.”

  Volpe blinked Nico’s eyes in surprise. “Your link with Nico is stronger than I realized. You have plucked these names from his thoughts?”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that. He broadcasts and I receive. We are … open to each other. Yes, there’s a link with me that he doesn’t have with anyone else, as far as I know, but it’s Nico who has the ability. Nico who is different.”

  Volpe nodded thoughtfully. “Just so. I believe he sensed me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He sipped his coffee and Geena wondered what it tasted like to him. If he liked the things that Nico liked because Nico’s taste buds had acclimated to certain things, or if Volpe’s ancient predispositions would carry over, despite the fact that he resided in a body not his own.

  “The Chamber of Ten,” Volpe said.

  Geena flinched in surprise. “That’s what I called it.”

  “And where did you derive that name? From your own imagination, or from your link with Nico? From his mind, and through his, from mine? That is what we all called it, myself and the Council, a place where we could meet in secret, unknown to the Doge and to the Senate.”

  The archaeologist in Geena came to the fore. “And Petrarch?”

  “When the poet wanted to move his library from Venice, I persuaded him to change his mind and arranged for Petrarch’s collection to be moved to the hidden room you and your people discovered beneath the Biblioteca. I could not allow him to remove certain arcane texts from the city.”

  “Magic, you mean?”

  Volpe nodded. “Spellcraft. Call it what you like.”

  “You admit that you ruled Venice through deceit and manipulation. How were these three men, elevated to the position of Doge, any less worthy to guide the city than you were?”

  “They cared nothing for Venice, only for themselves, and for their family,” Volpe replied, lifting his chin and glaring at her imperiously. “To them, the people of Venice were pawns. Grist for the mill of their ambition. I had only the good of the city in mind.”

  Geena scratched at the back of her left hand. “Oh, of course,” she replied archly. “You were the hero of the people.”

  “No, never that. I served them in secrecy, content to see the fruits of my labors in the rise of Venetian power and grandeur. But you mean to ask what the difference is between myself and these three corrupt men, if our goals were the same.”

  Geena sipped at her coffee. “Of course that’s what I’m asking. You wanted Venice for yourself, just as they did. You’re obviously ruthless. You manipulated and deceived and murdered to keep your power. Why are they any worse—”

  “Because I was chosen,” Volpe said.

  Great, Geena thought. A psychotic ghost with a Messiah complex.

  “Chosen how, exactly?”

  Volpe sighed. Staring at him, she could barely see Nico in that face now.

  “In your studies as an archaeologist, surely you must have encountered stories of the Oracles of the Great Cities of the World.”

  Geena had been about to lift her coffee cup again, but now she set it down, studying him closely. Volpe had said something before about an Oracle, but things had been happening so fast it had barely registered.

  “You don’t mean the Oracle of Delphi?”

  “One of many.”

  She was about to tell him she had no idea what he was talking about when a memory rose up. While cataloging the earliest of the books they had retrieved from Plutarch’s library, she had skimmed through a volume whose Latin title translated roughly to The Souls of Cities. Her Latin was very spotty, but she’d picked up a few sentences here and there that had made her think of a 14th-century French manuscript she had read during a dig in the ruins of a monastery in Talloires. It had included references to a woman who was considered the Oracle of Paris, who knew all of the secrets and the history of the city and who, it was believed, channeled its soul through her body. Collette something. She had offered wise counsel to nobles and commoners alike.

  “Maybe I know what you’re talking about,” Geena admitted, “but only a little. The great cities of the world are, what, supposed to choose someone as their defender—”

  “If need be, a defender,” Volpe interrupted. “But more truly, a voice. I am the Oracle of Venice and I have been for a very, very long time, including all of the centuries my heart remained in the Chamber of Ten. My heart and the city’s heart beat together. I know all of its secrets, its ancient history. Ruthless, perhaps, but I have done what was required of me.

  “I used spellcraft to keep myself youthful, to remain strong, long past the limits of ordinary men,” he went on. “But I was not immortal and, in time—long after I had banished the three cunning Doges—my health began to fail. I knew that I would die.”

  His voice trembled suddenly with remembered anguish. Though she felt only mistrust and even revulsion for him, he wore Nico’s face, and she hated seeing that pain in the features of the man she loved.

  “You wanted to continue to protect Venice even after your death,” Geena said. “Venice would have chosen another Oracle, but you didn’t want to trust that the next would be as capable as you were. Whatever the spell was that you used to banish the three Doges, it was tied to you, physically. Somehow—and you must have had help from members of the Council—you managed to preserve your heart, in order to keep the spell from ever breaking. But when we found the Chamber—”

  Volpe’s eyes flared with admiration. “I see why Nico is so profoundly in love with you. A formidable mind.”

  “You said Nico must have sensed you,” Geena went on. “You meant down in the Chamber. I think you’re right. Once we were inside, he was … not himself. When he dropped the urn—”

  “He broke the spell,” Volpe agreed, scratching at his forearm. “I attempted to restore the spell, gathering the elements necessary—”

  “Including my blood.”

  Volpe glanced at her arm and nodded. “Regrettably. But it would have been worth it, had the spell worked.”

  “Why didn’t it?”

  “Caravello was already here, in Venice. The spell cannot keep someone from entering the city if they are already here. Given what Caravello said, we must assume Foscari and Aretino have returned as well.”

  Things clicked into place in Geena’s mind, a memory surfacing.

  “When Caravello came after
us, you said that knife had the blood of the ‘new Oracle’ on it …”

  Volpe’s gaze flickered, and she saw danger in his eyes. But she pushed onward.

  “But you cut me with that knife. Are you saying—”

  He held up Nico’s hand to show her a slice on the palm, already healing. “It had Nico’s blood as well as yours. His mental power—what you call his ‘touch’—may have guided him to me, but I believe there were other forces at work as well. I believe that Venice called to him. The city always chooses. Even throughout my long rest it chose successors, but it had no need of them as long as I endured. I believe that Nico is to be the new Oracle.”

  This was insane. Total madness. Her life had become a nightmare.

  “You believe? Don’t you know?” she asked.

  Volpe traced his fingers along the rim of his coffee cup, not meeting her eyes. Hiding something. “Not yet. But the truth will reveal itself to all of us soon enough.”

  Geena knew if she pushed he would only shut her out. Whatever secrets he was hiding, she and Nico would learn them all eventually.

  “You’re arrogant as hell, but that doesn’t make you right,” she said. “You talk about the ambitions of these three Doges—and I don’t understand how they’re still alive—in such generalities. They’re ruthless, but you’ve admitted you’re just as ruthless. Even if you are this Oracle, I don’t see how that makes you the good guy in all of this.”

  Volpe smiled, one corner of Nico’s mouth lifting in something on the verge of a sneer. His eyes darkened with grim memory.

  “I understand, Geena,” the old magician said. He pushed his coffee cup aside and leaned closer to her, lowering his voice. “You want me to tell you that the Doges were evil, so you can feel better about helping me kill Caravello. So you can trust me. Well, let me assure you that you cannot trust me. If I must choose between your life and the preservation of my city, I will choose Venice. I must choose Venice. But evil? I can tell you about evil.

  “In a time before the history of Venice had begun to be written, most of the tribes of the Earth had those amongst them who were different. Magicians, shaman, even gods—call them what you want. They were like us, but they weren’t completely human. Some of the texts I’ve read claim that they were the offspring of demons who’d mated with humans, others the half-breed children of angels. I don’t know the answer, only that these were the true magicians, who did not simply tap into the arcane energies of the world the way that I do, but who had that power innately within themselves.

  “The Old Magicians were neither good nor evil, or they were not meant to be. They had wisdom and power and often kept themselves at a certain distance from the tribes with whom they lived, and from one another. Rarely would there be two of them together. Perhaps they were more like shepherds than anything else.

  “They were immortal, inasmuch as their lives were longer than an ordinary man could imagine, and they could heal themselves of all but the most grievous wounds. They could die. In time, they all did. But to those around them they surely seemed immortal.”

  The waitress came and refilled Geena’s cup and Volpe paused, staring at the woman, letting her see his irritation at the interruption. She didn’t offer him a refill before she darted away, shooting them both a withering glance.

  Despite the warmth lingering from the long summer day, Geena felt a chill deep enough that she warmed her hands on the cup.

  “Even if I accepted this …” She almost called it a fairy tale, but stopped herself. There were enough ancient texts that referred, even if only tangentially, to magicians and gods, healers and shaman—and oracles, for that matter—that she could not brush it off so easily. Not after what she had experienced today. And she could not forget the visions she had shared, the parts of the past she had experienced through Nico’s connection to Volpe.

  “What do these Old Magicians have to do with the Doges?” she asked. “Are you saying that’s why they’re still alive? They’re part of this ancient race?”

  Volpe sneered, and this time there was no trace of a smile in it. “It would be their fondest wish, but no. Not all of the Old Magicians remained so aloof and objective. There are many stories of them becoming corrupted, and among those, one of the ugliest tales is that of Akylis.”

  She nodded. “I’ve heard that name. Through Nico. I asked one of my colleagues about it and he mentioned Aquileia.”

  “Founded by Akylis,” Volpe confirmed. “Or, at least, by his followers. Those who survived their worship of him. He began to see ordinary people as pets and playthings and he made himself a god amongst them.”

  He waved a hand in the air as though to brush his words away. “None of this matters. It is only history, and we must concern ourselves with the present. Akylis has been dead for millennia. The surviving Doges must be our concern.”

  Geena stared at him. “You’re confusing the hell out of me.”

  Volpe leaned forward, locking eyes with her. For a moment she thought she could see Nico surfacing, but then his eyes narrowed and the old magician frowned, perhaps gathering his thoughts.

  “Every city has a soul, a collective spirit of hopes and desires and needs that, in time, takes on a certain awareness. The Oracle is chosen by the city itself, and the bond between them is intimate and complete. You have been working to preserve the history of Venice, but I have it all inside of me, all its memories, from the magical to the mundane. The moment I became the Oracle of Venice, my mind was flooded with all that knowledge, but one thing stood out amongst the others. Before the city was truly born, when the only people here were fishermen who lived in crude huts in the marsh, a rare gathering of Old Magicians took place. It was a funeral, of sorts. They dug deep into what is now San Marco, more than one hundred feet down, casting spells to accomplish what men could not, holding back the water. At the bottom of this well, they built a dolmen—a tomb of standing stones—and there they lay to rest the remains of Akylis. He had become so corrupt, so evil, that these nearly immortal beings—usually above ordinary emotion—felt ashamed.

  “They buried him there, and in time Venice rose above him. Akylis is dead. There is no awareness remaining in him. But his evil survives beneath the city, captured like the rancid gases inside a bloated, decaying corpse. Over the ages, many of those who have dabbled in magic in this city have touched this evil and been tainted by it, and throughout all of those many centuries it has been the duty of the Oracle to protect the city from those dark magicians. Only the Oracle can brush up against the evil trapped in the Well of Akylis without being tainted.”

  Geena sipped at her coffee, but did not take her eyes off Volpe. As he spoke, his voice almost mesmerizing, she had begun to really see him in that face, though the features were Nico’s.

  “That’s what happened to the Doges,” she said. “They delved into magic—”

  “Their hearts were already dark with greed,” Volpe said. “But, yes, they were tainted. It began with Caravello. Even before he became Doge he had already set his schemes in motion, sending cousins and uncles out of Venice, to the other great cities of the Mediterranean, with instructions to wheedle themselves into positions of influence. The family did the same, of course, in Venice. There were murders and blood sacrifices. But I heard every whisper of their conspiracy. Caravello wanted more than to be Doge of Venice. He wanted his family to take all of Europe, and perhaps beyond, one enchantment, one ritual, one murder at a time. And if that kind of black magic took the blood sacrifice of every man, woman, and child in Venice, he minded not at all, so long as his family continued its reign.”

  “Fuck’s sake, why didn’t you just kill him?” Geena asked, then blinked in surprise at the savagery of the sentiment.

  “We fought a war of influence,” Volpe said. “I did have some members of the family quietly arrested and secretly executed. But I couldn’t kill the Doge without losing control of Venice. I needed to be in the position to protect the city, because even after I arranged to have t
he Council ban Caravello, I knew that the family would not surrender entirely. The war continued. I managed to keep them out of power for nearly two decades before Aretino became Doge. Even then I watched carefully, uncertain how far he would take it. But he followed the plan that Caravello had set in motion, becoming a minor magician himself, tapping into the evil power of Akylis, and I had to arrange for him to be driven from the city as well.

  “Foscari was the last. Over the years after his banishment, I arranged for nearly every relative I could find to be killed. By then I had taken complete control of the Council of Ten and arranged to have them build an enormous crypt beneath a new school being erected in Dorsoduro. My influence did not reach beyond Venice, so there was nothing I could do about those outside the city. But I protected my—”

  Geena held up a hand. “Wait. Stop.”

  Shaken from the reverie of memory, Volpe narrowed his eyes further. “What is it?”

  Mind reeling, Geena took a breath to clear her head, trying to remember exactly what the waitress had told her at the pizzeria earlier in the day.

  “A building collapsed today in Dorsoduro. A bunch of people were killed. Supposedly they found a massive tomb hidden beneath it.”

  Volpe stared at her, then turned away with a snarl of disgust. “I should have known.”

  “What?”

  “I should have felt it,” Volpe said. He looked out the window at the fading daylight. “I am less than alive, but more than dead. Not a ghost, but not a man. When you told me the Mayor had been murdered, it upset me that I had not already felt it. I am the Oracle of Venice. The soul of the city is bonded to my own. But since my awakening, now that I am also bonded to Nico, my connection to the city is muffled and unfocused. I should be able to feel them.”

  “Because you’re the Oracle,” Geena said, and it wasn’t a question.

  Volpe nodded thoughtfully. “They knew enough magic even when I banished them to hide their precise locations from me, but not their presence in the city. Perhaps now that Nico and I have begun to … accommodate each other, my rapport with the city will grow clearer.