The Illusions In Between

by J M Robison

  He snorts in derision and peels half the chicken off with his fangs.

  Jaicom exits the building, warm-faced and clutching his purse. “One pound to one and twenty-four francs. Unbelievable!” He rubs the back of his neck, exhaling with force. “The train to Paris runs every two days. Won’t run till tomorrow.”

  “So, a hotel, then?” I enquire of everyone.

  Jaicom looks worriedly at Varlith chomping at the chicken, now reduced to bone. It crunches loudly in his teeth. “Too expensive. We’ll have to settle for a hostel. Joseara, you’re free to get out of the dress, if you like. I have no reputation in France. Varlith, you must remain as is.”

  The dragon grumbles, having fidgeted with his hat and robe the entire boat ride. I sympathize. I went so long without clothes myself during my incarceration in the undercroft that cloth afterward felt like sheets of wheat chaff. We follow Jaicom, whom we’ve all unofficially nominated as our guide across Europe.

  We find a hostel, though I suspect it was by pure visual deduction alone since I don’t think Jaicom knows a lot of French. We enter the building, and since this is the first inn I’ll be sleeping at since the 1500s, I can’t say if the peeling paint and splitting support beams are acceptable standards for the price we might pay.

  “Parles-tu anglais?” Jaicom asks the innkeeper.

  “A little,” he responds.

  “Four beds, one night.” Jaicom holds up four fingers. He slides over whatever amount they agree on. “When does the train leave tomorrow?”

  The man shakes his head. “Protests make hard travel. Trains may be no good.”

  I stop blinking so I can look at the man harder. I was aware of the lower-class protests spreading across the whole of Europe, though I conveniently ignored it so I wouldn’t be interrupted getting to my wife and baby. Magic seethes under my folded arms, though I do not know the spell to make the protests stop.

  Jaicom turns around with a pamphlet. “I have train times, though the man said the trains have been getting stopped and searched.”

  “So long as the train continues onward afterward.”

  He nods, expression grim.

  Our room has ten beds, five on each side. It’s still several hours until sundown, and I’m tempted to walk to Rome with all the waiting and promised stopping. Wasted time and too much time to think about Brynn’s safety.

  I busy my hands with turning my Fae Wood chips into francs, using Jaicom’s francs to copy from. He bristles about this, griping about his honest money. But when I make a snide comment about, “then I’ll need to rob the bank to have honest money to spend,” he shuts up. I’d have an honest job to earn honest money if the church still didn’t have a zealot devotion to killing me.

  Varlith leaves and doesn’t return. I suppose I should have explained to him what an inn and bed are, but so long as he returns by morning, I won’t fret. Probably went out to build himself a nest. And hunt. I can’t afford to use magic to free him from the dungeon if he gets arrested, but I will if I must. I won’t rescue Brynn with anything short of a dragon because I cannot guess what the Illuminati has planned. A trap, for certain.

  We filter downstairs for dinner–a slop of something I eat, which does its job to keep me alive, but little else.

  Back in our room, Joseara takes it upon herself to rustle out of her dress–easily done with the shoddy tie job I did–where she kicks it under the bed. She crashes onto the mattress, one leg hanging off, her pantaloons and tunic matching the general upkeep of our questionable accommodations. I consider leaving her illusioned face, but I’m afraid to offend her if she thinks I’m embarrassed by either her hood and mask or the scarred face beneath. I’m not embarrassed–sad for her, yes–so I drop the illusion.

  I remove my coat and boots, tossing them both under my bed, murmuring a spell to keep them attached to the floor unless I remove them with another spell. The Frenchman who’s claimed the bed across from me looks eager enough to rob Jaicom while he sleeps. I illusioned my clothes on purpose to look a tad shabby for English standards. I’ll think of a spell to encourage the Frenchman to stay on his side of the room.

  I lay down, a bare foot resting over my knee, spinning my wedding band around my finger, and think of all the things worrying me.

  Jaicom removes his coat, folding it until all four corners measure exactly even, and places his hat on top, sliding both into a boxed shelf next to his head. His polished shoes go beneath, side by side and toes forward. “You said the Black Magician wouldn’t travel the conventional route.” Jaicom unbuttons his white tunic. The room is still receiving guests, but presently the only female is Joseara, who’s snoring. “So how do you think he’s gotten a woman and her baby across four countries, assuming they’ve done so unnoticed?”

  I stop spinning my ring, wait until the anger passes, and resume. “Black Magicians get their magic from the devil’s demons. They convince a demon to work for them, and the demon will perform certain tasks, though those tasks are limited. Just like the snake who tempted Eve, demons can’t ever leave the ground. Ye can’t see demons, so Black Magicians gain their audience by seemingly moving objects by magic when it’s actually just the demon moving them about.”

  My duel with the Black Magician six years ago brings sad memories still because that was a time when Brynn was unreachable to me. “It’s all just side-show entertainment to make coin, but not sufficient enough to conceal Brynn and Levi. For things outside the Black Magicians’ abilities, he would commune with the devil hisself to work the magic for him. The devil doesn’t have his own body, though he wants one. For his magic, he requires the Black Magician to offer a body part to him. Usually, it’s a finger or a toe, but the devil chooses the price, and sometimes it’s larger, like a hand or foot. Or more. Sometimes their lives.”

  “So, the man who took Brynn would have likely asked the devil to conceal them as they traveled?”

  “Likely.”

  “A bit disturbing. Are you going to sleep with your hat on?”

  My hat. I’m still wearing it. The illusion of a hat, anyway, which is why I forgot about it. I can’t feel it. A quick glance around the room to make sure no one is looking, I spell the illusioned hat off my head.

  “You could save yourself the trouble of forgetting and buy a real hat with your fake money.” He pronounces fake with enthusiasm.

  “Nay,” I say, and leave it at that. Hats remind me too accurately of a sack cinching around my head. Twice that’s happened. The first was to take me to my three hundred and twenty-four-year incarceration. The second to my death.

  I relieve myself in the garderobe and lay down, looking at the ceiling, gas lamps from the streets waving light across the beams. I must be thinking too deeply about Brynn because I smell rosemary soap. I catch that scent and inhale until I’ve sucked it completely out of the air. For a phantom scent, it satisfies me. Eudora washes with Brynn’s rosemary soap, so I breathe both of them into my chest, calming me just enough so I sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  Darik

  The cold river stiffened my beaten ankles and knees. I breathe in through my nose and out my mouth in a hiss. A broken rib.

  Though the river separates the claimed jurisdiction of the Camorra, my laying exposed on the stone blocks hemming the river into a channel keeps me safe only as long as my luck holds out.

  The warming sun fingers my damaged joints enough to where I think I can trust them to carry me. The dried blood from my wounded hand has bound my skin to the stone like tar. I pry it up, leaving a bloody handprint. My hand throbs. My chest throbs. My head, knees, and ankles throb.

  I roll onto my knees, holding my breath so I won’t grumble, and ease to my feet. I limp forward.

  Early peddlers are more concerned with my purse than the bleeding hand I’ve got wrapped around the bottom of my shirt. Polizia gives me no attention, though I see enough of them in the two squares I cross. I inhale and exhale from between my teeth. I’m shivering despite the March sun lifting
fingers under the flower heads to turn them upward from their window boxes high above me.

  I approach the temple. Ferdiano works today, though I might have gotten here before him. No matter. I’ll lie in the courtyard and bleed until a temple worker finds me and carries me inside, God willing.

  I step into the shadow of the temple and over the grass and stone-laid courtyard. The chill kept me alert and energized, but the temptation of the destination’s end swamps me with nausea now. I’ve had tussles with the Camorra before, but none so severe and devastating as this. I question whether their zeal to catch me has risen to overshadow my zeal to live.

  My path of travel turns into a zig-zag. I swear at the door at the end for seeing my distress and not rushing closer to help me. I’ve navigated to the right wall of the courtyard, bloody hand pressing upon the beams of linked arches supporting the mezzanine above it.

  A hot wave hits me. I lean against a pillar, froth bubbling in my gut. Now I suspect the stiletto that stabbed my hand was poisoned.

  I reach the door at the end and wrench it open. “Sanctuary!” I make eye contact with Ferdiano at the altar. My knees give out, and I crash onto the tile. White robes sweep over me. Ferdiano lifts my shoulders, and my head rolls back.

  “Hem…lock,” I gurgle past saliva quickening over my tongue, lifting my hand to show the wound.

  Shouts echo in the deep recesses of Sant’Ivo’s temple. My body leaves the floor, and I strain in the clutches of the hands carrying me. I didn’t think I was going to die today. I’m almost sad about it.

  I hear an angry voice, but the only word I recognize is my name intersperse throughout.

  I’ve stopped moving and can’t be sure if I’ve been laid down or if I’ve floated away. It feels an ocean beats inside me, and my shoulders lift with every swooning wave.

  If swallowed, poison can be neutralized by a charcoal drink. I don’t think there’s a way to neutralize it if it’s in the blood.

  Sant’Ivo, I pray, hoping the patron saint of abandoned children will continue his thirteen years of protection over me. I’m now twenty-three. I hope there isn’t an age limit for what the saint might consider “children.” If you allow me to live, I will continue to rescue those unfortunate ones who’ve been treated unjustly by those who have taken advantage of them…I never finish my prayer.

  I die.

  Chapter Eleven

  Brynnella

  I don’t have a window in the enclosed space of my flying room. I’m glad I have Levi to distract me, though I fear the million possible changes which might occur between now and when I’m back home. I force myself not to dwell on the questions I don’t have the answers to: will Zadicayn find me? Why does the Italian need me?

  The cheese, bread, and fruits I find in the cupboards are fresh, and I pretend they weren’t created with black magic as I eat them. The chamber pot empties through a hole in the floor, but I use it as little as possible because we are flying over inhabited places.

  I’ve become so used to the monotonous rhythm of vibration in the floor that I’m alerted immediately to when it changes. I wake up and rub my eyes, careful not to wake Levi, and walk into the adjoining room. The Italian sleeps.

  I open the outside door to a dark world, lights sliding beneath me. I think we’re closer to the ground.

  “Close the door. Your husband won’t want you dead.”

  “Where are we?” I demand although none of my previous requests have yet to be answered.

  He slides off the bed and walks toward me, grabbing my arm and forcing me away from the door, slamming it shut with his bandaged hand. “Get your baby.”

  I can hardly breathe with panic. I don’t want to do anything he says, but I’m helpless to refuse. There was nothing in my room to use as a weapon, and choking him with my bedsheet would only upset him. I don’t want to test the limits of his magic.

  Levi grumbles and swipes his eye with a tiny fist as I rouse him. I wrap a sheet around my body and tuck him into the folds against my breasts. He falls back asleep.

  I sit on the bed, rocking back and forth and swiping my eyes free of tears. My heart stutters when a distinct thump meets the underside of the floor.

  The Italian opens my door and beckons me. My shoulders tighten. I stand, pressing Levi to me protectively. The Italian turns his back toward me and walks out of the room, clearly confident I won’t assault him with his back turned. I wish I was more confident. If I didn’t have Levi in my protection, I just might try.

  I step knee-deep into weeds. I look behind me. The carriage is well camouflaged in the dark, so I barely see even the outline against the clouded stars.

  “Dimisit es,” says the Italian, and the scaled horses pulling the carriage respond like an automation. Without moving their feet, their heads tip forward in sync and their bodies rush into the ground, pulling the container of my confinement with them as if diving into water without a splash.

  I’m too shocked to make a sound, backing up with this awful sensation they’re going to unearth from the ground beneath my feet. Suppose I’d be more shocked if I weren’t already accustomed to magic.

  Clouded stars and lack of moon press darkness thick around us. The Italian walks away from me, expecting me to follow. I don’t. I run in the opposite direction, weeds slapping my skirt. I don’t expect to get far–but I just might. He catches my hair and yanks me back.

  He spins me around to face him, still clenching my hair. I swing a foot against his hip. With my hair still in his custody, he makes a feeble attempt to miss my assault, turning so my boot smashes into his watch pocket instead. I spit on him.

  He releases my hair and grabs my upper arm, shaking me, wiping my hate off his narrow nose. “Give me the baby.”

  Ice freezes in my chest. I shake my head. I shouldn’t have tested him. “I’m sorry. I won’t do that again. I’m just scared, but I would feel more comfortable if you’d tell me why–”

  “Give me the baby.”

  I can’t stop myself from crying. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll cooperate.”

  “Now!”

  I cross my arms between Levi and the Italian. I struggle to get away from him, but he holds my hair firmly. If I had a knife, I’d cut it off. “Please. Don’t. I’m sorry. I do–”

  “Give me the baby, or I’ll tear him out of your arms and smash him on the ground.”

  With a pitiful shriek, I hand Levi to him. “I’m sorry,” I plead, stuffing both knuckles into my mouth and cry. “Zadicayn?” I whisper.

  “Give me your blanket.”

  I do as commanded.

  Levi cries. The Italian swaths him tightly in the sheet with gentle hands. He coos to Levi, touching his face, and soon my son silences. I’m delirious with rage that he would treat another man’s wife and child this way.

  Subdued and silent, I trail behind like a slave to her master. We come upon a road made with flat stones fit together strategically. Heavy headstones, mausoleums, crosses, and sarcophagi press upon us on both sides, edges beat smooth by time, stone discolored.

  We walk a mile, the headstones leading the way. I wish Levi would cry. It disturbs me he would be so comfortable in the arms of his kidnapper. A wall looms up before us in the dark, the road tucking under an arch that will herald our entry into the city I see beyond. Gaslamps light up the street.

  “Where are we?” I ask, with absolutely no hope he will respond.

  He doesn’t.

  Our walk has brought the sun sooner to us, and I look at the tombs to divine an answer from them. I pass many, all carved in what I’m starting to believe is Latin. Some English words are derived from Latin. I try to yank meaning out of the words as I pass them:

  IGNOTA ERAT. ROMA EST AD PUGNAM

  Roma.

  Rome.

  I stop walking, staring at the tombstone, wishing I knew the rest of the words to prove my fears wrong.

  The Italian walks quicker now, likely trying to beat the sunlight which will summon more prying eye
s on him and his crimes. We pass a man whose clothes make me believe he might be a constable. His manner of dress is much different from that of England, but I recognize the same mannerisms from when I’d catch them eyeing Zadicayn before they nabbed him for his execution. This man eyes us now as if trying to decide we are something worth investigating.

  The Italian drives onward with long strides. I want to shout to the constable that I’ve been kidnapped, except I don’t speak Italian.

  We approach a carriage pulled by a single horse. The driver lifts his head. The Italian says something to the driver, and I grasp desperately at the words to garner some meaning out of the language I do not understand, catching and holding only the last word: Sant’Ivo. I repeat it over and over again as if it is the key to my escape if only I can decipher it.

  The driver says something in return and the Italian shakes his fingers inside his purse and drops coins in the driver’s gloved hand. The Italian opens the door for me. I step inside and he follows. The driver cracks his whip. The carriage rattles forward.

  I watch out the window so I can remember the route to make my escape back to the road we entered by. Rome’s city planning is much like England’s–like a grid. I’m able to memorize the first five turns before I lose track, and I resign myself to looking out for notable features–clothes strung between buildings above us; the legs of a broken statue; a shrine; the fountain with a naked baby water spout riding the back of a fish.

  We cross a bridge over a dirty river, and after four more turns the carriage stops. The Italian steps out. I follow without any prompting. The driver cracks his whip, and the horse plods away from us down the road with a sharp staccato clacking of hooves on stone.

  I don’t see any special distinction with this building. It’s several stories high, with windows and a single wood door. The Italian opens the door and goes inside. Beyond is a courtyard surrounded by four high walls which are split horizontally in the middle by a mezzanine. Arches connect both ground and top levels. The Italian walks toward another door at the far end.