Termination

by Deborah Chester

  He balanced, lifted, and struck, uttering a fierce cry as he did so. He caught Mario in a swift one-two kick to the chin and chest, although the impact with armor numbed his heel all the way up his ankle. Mario staggered back, stunned, giving Noel time to spin, regain his balance, and kick out again. Mario fell. Gino staggered up, but Noel easily punched him down.

  Dancing back, Noel saw the torturer and his assistant coming at him with clubs. He whirled around and ran for the steps.

  The shouting, however, had roused more guards. They appeared at the top of the steps, and Noel retreated. He turned in time to meet the torturer’s attack and sent the club spinning. His heel knocked the torturer back, and the assistant dropped his weapon with a howl of fear.

  Hunkering down, he clapped his hands over his head. “God’s mercy! God’s mercy! God’s mercy!” he shouted over and over.

  Noel dashed past him, plucking down a torch to light his way. The guards were descending the steps with a clatter of armor and weapons. The prisoners continued to pound and cheer. Glancing around desperately, Noel ran across the torture chamber to the far side. Leaping over the corpse that had been abandoned at the mouth of a passageway, Noel darted down it.

  The passage was low-ceilinged and uneven. After bumping his head a couple of times and swearing beneath his breath, Noel ducked down and ran bent over double.

  Within perhaps twenty feet the passage enlarged and forked in two. Noel skidded to a momentary halt and glanced back over his shoulder. They were coming. He had no time to decide. Pushing down his worry, he kept reminding himself that there had to be some means of going outside. This was where they sent bodies for disposal. The torturer had mentioned a landing and that meant an exit to a canal. Both passageways probably came out at an exit. Where else could they go?

  Just pick one, he told himself, his panting hoarse in his ears, and he chose the left path.

  This passage was crude, almost tunnellike, and full of bends and sudden twists. The sounds of pursuit grew louder. Noel heard snatches of sentences echoing from behind him and guessed they were splitting up to cover both tunnels. His heart pounded double time, and he began to think he’d made a serious tactical error in going this way. There were no side tunnels, no chambers, nothing to hide in, nothing to help him elude the men following him. The farther he ran the more convinced he was that he was heading straight for a dead end. He should have taken the right-hand passage, but there was no turning back now.

  Fatigue slowed him down. Although he was fit, he’d been through quite a lot since materializing in Venice. He’d had no chance as yet to rest or eat. Travel caused heavy depletion of his body’s resources. Still, each time he was tempted to slow down and give himself a breather, the sounds of pursuit sent him hurrying on.

  He wasn’t pacing himself well. He knew he couldn’t continue much longer like this. He either had to escape or find a hiding place. Thus far, his route offered neither alternative.

  This was all Leon’s fault. Noel promised himself that when he reached the end of this tunnel, he would dive into the murky waters of the nearest canal and get as far away from the Doge’s palace as possible. And once he knew escape was sure, he would comb this city for his duplicate.

  He’d vowed before to kill Leon, and had never been able to do it. But this time he knew he had to do more than that. Destroying Leon would be like destroying a part of himself, something impossible to do. No, he’d been running from the truth a long time, refusing to accept that he and Leon were destined to always be linked together. However, now that there was no possible means of going back to the twenty-sixth century, he meant to live out his normal life span here as efficiently as possible. That meant no more scrambling to clean up the havoc that Leon continually wreaked on society. No more chasing after his duplicate. No more stupid explanations. No more calamities. When he found Leon he was going to make him a prisoner, and his duplicate would not make any more mischief with people’s lives. It would be misery, of course, for he and Leon hated each other, but it was better than this.

  He hit his head again, cursed, and ducked beneath an overhang. Beyond it the tunnel opened up and enlarged into a spacious chamber fitted with a crude vaulted ceiling where someone long, long ago had painted frescoes now dim and rubbed with age. The light from Noel’s torch flared out around him, flickering in a draft of fresh air. He saw no exit. The chamber walls curved around him in a semicircle. Fitted into the walls were innumerable holes that had been carved out by hand. He walked closer, holding up his torch, and saw that the holes were filled with human bones. This was some sort of catacomb, a resting place for countless bodies over countless years.

  Gazing around, Noel’s heart sank.

  He hadn’t found an exit. Instead he’d come to a charnel house.

  Chapter 4

  Lurking in the shadows of the Piazza San Marco, a lone, cloak-shrouded figure watched the hubbub of activity around the Ducal Palace. Armed guards mingled with hired ruffiani; processions of physicians in their long robes and distinctive hats came and went; representatives of the Church arrived in pomp rendered foolish by their hurry; patricians still in their finery and masks lingered, craning their necks and gossiping behind their hands; spies and agents drifted through the crowd.

  No one saw the watcher who hid himself near the front of the cathedral. The watcher did not intend that they should. He could have stood in the midst of the commotion had he chosen, and passed unseen, but he had expended enough energy this evening in completing his mission. Why should he exhaust himself? Better to shelter within the enfolding darkness where he could gloat freely.

  Besides, he loved the darkness of Venice. Here, more than any other place he had visited in all his travels, he felt an instant affinity for the velvety gloom of this dank and shadowy city. Ah, the night air—full of an evil miasma of odors—wood rot, fish, seawater, sewage, incense, heads of the condemned decaying on the balcony of the palace, unwashed woolen clothing, torch and boat pitch, garlic, and burned cooking oil. Better than the scent of the city was the running babble of minds—so much lust, avarice, intrigue, plotting, scheming, and passion. It was almost too heady a mixture.

  Leon closed his eyes and let his mind sip from the thoughts of a pickpocket stalking his next victim. He sampled the fury of a woman plotting to poison her elderly husband so she could marry her lover. He savored the cold intensity of an agent of the dreaded Council of Ten who spied upon a wealthy banker who had been plotting treason with a group of Lombards.

  But none of the amusement before him was as entertaining as the sight of his loathsome twin Noel being dragged up the steps into the palace.

  Chuckling to himself, Leon slapped his thigh in glee. The perverse twist in the time loop that forced him and Noel to always travel to the same coordinates also materialized Leon first. Arriving before Noel was a delicious advantage and he never failed to make quick use of it.

  Already he had won a place in the Contessa Virenza’s household. Her assignment, designed to test him, was to addle the wits of the Lady Francesca. Leon grinned to himself. Ridiculously simple. And now, he had managed to time his attack on the girl precisely right. Noel had blundered along to be accused and arrested in his place.

  Tipping back his head, Leon held up his hands to the starry sky. Ah, the sublime irony of it…making Noel pay for what he’d done. For a telepath, it was so easy to drive an innocent young girl to insanity. Noel would not be able to repair her, and they would soon tear him apart in the torture chamber. Life could not be better.

  With a sigh, Leon drew his cloak about him and slipped from the church portico. Skirting the Molo, he called for a gondolier and let the man row him through the boat traffic of merrymakers. Leon lolled back on soft cushions and let his fingers trail in the water.

  Noel’s arrest left him free to take over Venice by any means he chose. In the past, Leon had made his plans for political power by subverting the minds of kings and chancellors. However, the labyrinth of politics among th
e Venetians was too complicated for his taste. This time he preferred to focus his energies on wealth. He felt safer here if he remained behind the scenes, spiderlike, spinning a web of accumulation in the contessa’s court.

  “Palazzo Virenza,” said the gondolier.

  Leon arose and stepped onto the landing. Tossing the man a coin, he flung the end of his cloak over his left shoulder and walked up the steps past the stone dragons that flanked the doorway.

  The porter admitted him, and Leon announced himself to a page, who bowed and escorted him through a small courtyard garden of dormant roses, shrubbery, and tiny orange trees. The winter air was mild and cool. Guests lingered in the loggia. Upstairs, the ballroom held a crowd of revelers. The plunking of the musicians made a noise that irritated Leon. He had never understood music, never enjoyed it. He and the page waited through the piece, then while the guests applauded and jugglers ran in, the page approached another, more senior servant.

  This lackey vanished, only to return a moment later with Messer Tibo. The man wore a long robe of black velvet. His face and hands were thin, almost skeletal. His skin held the pallor of death, gray and bloodless, yet his black eyes gleamed with an almost fevered intensity. Their gaze fixed on Leon now as though Messer Tibo wanted to bore through Leon’s skull to the secrets concealed within.

  “Well?” he asked impatiently.

  Leon’s eyes narrowed. He disliked Messer Tibo, especially since the man’s mind was closed to him. There was something unpleasant and reptilian about Messer Tibo; he seemed to be a man who would enjoy dissecting a rat without killing it first. Leon should have found him a kindred spirit, but his finely attuned instincts for self-preservation gave warning instead. Leon felt a riff of nervousness pass through him. He squelched it immediately, for he didn’t need to fear anyone. But he edged to one side to keep a certain measure of distance between them.

  “You failed,” Messer Tibo said.

  Leon stiffened. “I succeeded,” he snapped. “Hasn’t word reached here? The rest of Venice has flocked to the piazza to see and to gossip.”

  But even as he spoke the words of bravado, he could have bitten his tongue. He wanted to tell the news to the contessa herself, not this slithery minion she favored.

  Messer Tibo’s eyes brightened. A mere suggestion of a smile curled the corner of his thin mouth. “I shall inform the contessa—”

  “No! It’s my news. I’ll tell her,” Leon said. “Show me where she is.”

  “Uncouth fool! The contessa is with her guests. No one can disturb her at this time.”

  “Even when she’s anxious for—”

  “The contessa is never anxious,” Messer Tibo said sharply. “When you have been in her employ for a time, you will learn her commands are final, her will is yours to obey, and her wishes are the only ones which matter.”

  Leon sneered. “I have obeyed her will. I carried out her commands. And it was her wish to see me as soon as I returned.”

  “Ridiculous. The contessa is entertaining her guests. She never conducts business at such a time.”

  “Get out of my way, old man,” Leon said, pushing past him.

  Messer Tibo merely raised his hands and did not touch Leon, yet an invisible force shoved him back hard against one of the columns.

  Astonishment stunned Leon more than the impact. He gaped at the man, unable to believe what had just happened. These primitive Italians knew nothing of mind control, hypnosis, telepathy, or telekinesis, yet Leon had been shoved with mental force rather than physical. How?

  Messer Tibo’s thin lips curled in an unpleasant smile. Something black and sinister flickered in his eyes. “Let that be your first lesson. Nothing is ever as it seems. Now go to the servant quarters and wait until you are sent for.”

  Glaring with resentment, Leon opened his mouth to protest, but Messer Tibo flung out his hand in an imperious gesture. “Go!”

  And, much to his own fury and humiliation, Leon went.

  The palazzo’s kitchens were a hive of activity as cooks strove to complete trays of meringues and confectioner sweets in the shape of tiny swans. Servers scooped up silver trays of oysters and crabs and bore them away to the guests, while others carried in dirty crockery, emptied fruit bowls, and scraped picked carcasses of peacocks, partridges, and pigeons into pails for distribution to the poor.

  Heat radiated from all the fires and ovens. There were too many people for the space, all working too fast and too hard. They inevitably bumped into each other, swore, yelled, and fought, only to be quieted by the swift rebukes of the majordomo, who seemed to be everywhere at once.

  Still seething, Leon gazed around. Messer Tibo needed to be taught a lesson of his own. There wasn’t room in this household for two sorcerers. But before he decided on his method of revenge, Leon intended to learn more about Messer Tibo and his unexpected powers. Until tonight he had assumed that the man was simply a charlatan who made his living by brewing potions to guard against poisonings or by casting horoscopes for the family. Leon had expected to dazzle the contessa with his own tricks and knock Messer Tibo right off his easy post. But clearly there was more to Messer Tibo than he had first supposed. Leon didn’t like surprises. He didn’t like people whose minds he couldn’t read. He didn’t like people as strong as he.

  This was not the first time Leon had encountered creatures of the supernatural, creatures from other dimensions, or creatures of truly dark powers. He was not yet convinced, however, that Messer Tibo belonged in any of these categories. Charlatans had many tricks.

  No matter what he was, Messer Tibo was going to regret trying to stand in Leon’s way. Leon intended to make him very uncomfortable indeed.

  First, however, he needed information. Leon shed his cloak and approached the majordomo. The man was short, plump, and bald, a nervous type with skittish brown eyes who seemed to feel that the success or failure of the evening depended totally on him.

  “Giulietta!” he said sharply to a maid, “if you drop another tray of glasses, you will be—”

  Leon stepped between him and the girl. “I want to talk to you.”

  The majordomo’s gaze flashed up angrily, only to be caught and mesmerized by Leon’s own. Leon ensnared his feeble little mind and forced it.

  “I want to talk to you,” he said again, more quietly.

  The majordomo’s sweating face turned pale and vacant. “Of course,” he said and led Leon to a quiet corner of the wine cellar.

  Here, in the cool shadows, surrounded by dusty bottles of Cyprian wine, Leon combed through his victim’s thoughts ruthlessly, ignoring the man’s occasional whimpers of pain. He learned that Messer Tibo had been in the household for twelve years, that everyone except the contessa was afraid of him, that he was an astrologer and alchemist, very jealous of his professional secrets, refusing to let the servants inside his workroom. He had two servants of his own, both mutes, both incorruptibly loyal to him. These silent, mutilated creatures guarded Messer Tibo’s domain in the palazzo’s tower. No one, save the contessa herself, was ever permitted to enter.

  Leon scowled and released the man, who cowered down and began to weep with muffled mewing noises. Ignoring him, Leon paced back and forth. He saw now that he had been too confident. Messer Tibo would be difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge. He clearly had the contessa in his pocket. She was gullible in two areas: her dependence on horoscopes and her greedy desire to see lead turned into gold.

  But Leon was not ready to admit defeat yet.

  “Where is the key to Messer Tibo’s tower?” he asked.

  The majordomo was still groveling on the floor. “Impossible,” he whispered.

  “Where is it?”

  “We are not permitted there.”

  “But there are keys.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  The man sniffed and shrank back. “Please don’t hurt me again. Please don’t hurt me—”

  “Shut up. Where are the keys?”

  “The
re…there are two.”

  “Two that unlock the tower?”

  “Yes.”

  In excitement Leon stepped forward. “You have one?”

  “No! No, I swear I do not. We are not permitted there. The—”

  Leon gripped him by the front of his livery and jerked him up.

  Shivering and pleading for mercy, the majordomo raised his hands in supplication. “Please, please,” he gasped.

  “I can force the answer from you—”

  “In nome di Dio, please—”

  Leon pressed his palm across the man’s sweating face.

  The majordomo uttered a choked cry. “Two keys,” he said desperately. “The contessa has one. Messer Tibo keeps the other. There are only two.”

  “Where is the contessa’s?” asked Leon. The man’s fear was beginning to excite him. He let his fingers caress the man’s brow. He could have taken the answer in an instant from the majordomo’s mind, but this cat and mouse game was infinitely more enjoyable. “Or does she carry it?”

  “No, of course not. It is—oh, per amor di Dio—they will cut out my tongue if it is learned what I have told you.”

  “Who will cut it out?”

  “The mutes.”

  Leon smiled to himself, momentarily diverted. “Do unto others as others have done unto you,” he whispered. “My type of morality.”

  “Mercy, signore. Mercy please.”

  “Why should I show you any mercy, you fat, pompous little ass? Tell me where it is!”

  “In an olive-wood casket in the contessa’s chambers. It sits atop her strongbox, but if a robber should force his way in and use that key it will not open the—”