On the Isle of Sound and Wonder (33 page)

After a time, Dante moved across the room, dragging the ivory instrument with him, and approached the unconscious Torsione where he was slumped upon the wall. Ferran strained to see what he was doing, and Dante gave him a tired, wry look.

“Curious, too? Even in the face of death? I need a little more blood from each of you. All part of the recipe, you understand,” the old man explained calmly, pressing one end of the bone instrument to Torsione’s chest. The sharp end of the instrument sliced delicately into the skin. Torsione did not stir or wake, but his blood slid brightly down the grooves in the pale bone. “From my brother, for his treacherous ambition.” He repeated the process with Bastiano. “From the king’s brother, to balance my own brother.”

Ferran strained against his invisible bonds as Dante turned toward him next, still carefully tilting the bone so that the samples of blood remained in the well at the bottom of the shaft. The old man’s gray eyes were bemused and strangely glossy as he peered into Ferran’s face.

“And some from you, too, boy,” Dante murmured. “Son of a king, to balance the sons I never had. My wife died, you know. You were too small to remember it. That was the start of it all.”

Ferran felt a tickle in the back of his throat. He swallowed several times as Dante studied his face.

“There’s no way you wouldn’t have been brought into this,” Dante was saying. “It was your destiny, so there’s really no use in thinking on alternate situations now, worrying about how things could have been. Your fate always would have brought you here. It couldn’t have been your sister; it had to be the son.”

Ferran furrowed his brow, still surreptitiously twisting at his restraints.
What is he talking about? What is it all for?

“You’re confused, and rightly so.” Dante tipped his head to one side thoughtfully. “You’ll forgive me if I spare you the unfortunate, lengthy details, Prince Ferran. You would not understand them. I have been hard at my studies for such a long time to keep them all in order.” He tapped his temple and chuckled airily. “So to be brief: I will conquer death itself, so that never again can it take from me anything that is precious.”

Ferran felt the tickle rise in his throat again and he made a soft sound, much to his own surprise. Dante raised one brow.

“What’s that? Finding your voice, are you? I have a moment to spare for your words, if you make them brief.” He beckoned with a trembling finger, and Ferran’s throat cleared of the tickle so suddenly as to make him cough.

“What . . . what’s left that is precious to you?” he croaked at last, his voice unsteady. “You have destroyed yourself, ruined Mira’s life, broken all bonds. Now you will kill your remaining family and once friends? You cannot hope for your wife to return, sir,” Ferran coughed. “She is gone, and you remain. Mira remains.”

“You do not know what I am capable of.” Dante’s sneer was abrupt. “You are just a boy.”

“And you are an old man. If you kill us, you’ll have nothing left.” Ferran saw Dante’s eyes narrow a fraction in uncertainty.

There was a fretful sound, like a groan, from somewhere further down the corridor, and Dante flinched slightly. He turned away from Ferran without completing the task, clutching the bone in his shaking hands. Ferran exhaled softly in relief.

The large, scaly-skinned man appeared once again, slumping out of the passageway with an anxious expression on his face. He carried another body on his shoulders, and he gave another little groan again as he met his master’s eyes.

“Karaburan,” Dante said through gritted teeth as the castaway was delivered carefully onto the floor. “Did I not ask that you leave me to my work in peace? Without interruptions?”

“Yes, Master,” mumbled the creature, his pale blue eyes watery and worried. “I did think you might be unhappy that I returned, but you told me to bring all of the bodies to you, and I obey in all things! I found one more,” he explained, gesturing to the sailor’s body.

“He’s no one,” Dante frowned, stalking over to the corpse and eyeing the dingy clothing. “It’s just a sailor, you mongrel; I don’t need him.”

“But I obeyed!” protested Karaburan, worriedly. “I did not want you to think I disobeyed solely for the fact that you already had what you needed!”

Dante sighed through his nose. “Very well. Turn him over,” he commanded. “But I am sure I do not need him. Everyone is accounted for.”

Karaburan knelt and turned the body over, the unkempt wheat-gold hair tangled with seaweeds. He reached up and pulled the weeds away from the sailor’s face and made a strangled noise of terror. Across the room, Ferran craned his neck, trying to see the face. Dante gasped and almost dropped the bone instrument, and, as he fell to his knees, Ferran finally saw the sailor’s face.

Mira!

Well,
thought Mira,
that was rather dramatic.
She stood near Ferran, holding the staff in one hand, watching Karaburan fall to the floor in tears upon recognizing the body.

It was an unusual sensation, looking at her own dead body. Mira felt oddly amused at the sight and paused a moment, despite her urgent purpose to free the men and stop the ritual. There was a great swath of rope and seaweed tangled about the corpse’s throat and torso, and her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, a dull cold green. Her face still shone purple in the dim light; it appeared very much that she had strangled and drowned.

Beside her, Ferran made a soft, choked noise. Mira looked at him and saw tears begin to pour down his cheeks. Karaburan was sob-hiccupping in terror, his large, six-fingered hands patting uselessly at the body. Dante set down the ivory instrument with one hand, trembling as he reached out to close the corpse’s eyes. He looked as pale as the bone beside him.

“How could you,” whispered Dante, rocking a little over the body. “My daughter, my only child.” He looked at Karaburan. “How could you?”

“Me?” sobbed the creature, “I didn’t do this! I could never have killed her!” His fat tears pooled and slid over rough cheeks. “I did not even know it was her,” he squealed in agony.

Ah, poor thing,
she thought.
He didn’t know that bit was coming, either. Quite the performance, though. And my father!
She couldn’t help but be intrigued by his emotional outburst. It was more real feeling than she’d seen from him in years.

Dante cursed loudly, pressing his hands to his eyes in pain. Karaburan lowered his head to kiss the corpse’s lifeless hand, but Dante looked up again sharply and swiped at him.

“Get away, beast!” The force of his gesture flung Karaburan across the room, toppling the shelves and crates, dumping books and pages and artifacts onto the weeping creature. Dante bent forward over his daughter’s corpse, mumbling something insistent and forceful, but whatever incantation it was, there was no flicker of life in the body.

Mira focused her mind on Karaburan in the pile of books and crates, reaching out with the power of the staff.
Kabu,
she called with her mind, and heard his sob turn to a yelp as he struggled to get out of the debris.
It’s Aurael’s trick. I’m still here. Bring me the book!

Beside her, Ferran shut his eyes, seeming unable to keep his head up any longer. He had stopped straining against his invisible bonds.

Right,
thought Mira.
Ferran.

She covered his mouth with her hand, and Ferran’s eyes snapped open in panic, shifting from side to side frantically, but did not see her.

“Shh,” she breathed in his ear. “Don’t speak. I’m not dead. Just follow my lead, and stay quiet.”

Ferran gave a tiny nod and looked straight ahead, watching Dante attempt to revive the corpse. Mira reached for his wrist, feeling the binding spell and attempting to unravel it with her mind. It took several moments for her to figure out how to unlock it, but once she did, the bindings at his other wrist and his ankles were easy to remove.
The others won’t take long, now.

“Don’t move until I give the signal,” she whispered, and touched his chest briefly to plant him in place with her own spell, intending to cut him loose as soon as it was safe. Ferran looked startled at the touch, but then exhaled softly and nodded again. Mira moved quickly to undo the holding spells on each of the other prisoners, glancing over her shoulder at her father and Karaburan as she did so.

Dante looked up at the ceiling of the cavern, his cheeks pale in the torchlight. His eyes were cold and dark, his mouth a grim line, but otherwise, he seemed as though nothing had happened. The hole in the roof showed the first glimmer of moonlight beginning to peep through, brightening the spot on the floor, and he stood carefully.

He retrieved the bone ladle, moving away from the corpse on the ground as though it were not even there. Karaburan half-crawled away from the corner where he’d been thrown, limping awkwardly, as if hurt. A second glance revealed that Karaburan clutched something under one arm, trying to hide it by hugging himself tightly as he made his way back toward the tunnel exit.

Ferran shifted his weight, and Dante looked over at him before getting to his feet. “Be still, poor prince. We are all destined for the same dark end, all of us—except for myself, of course.”

“You can’t cheat or conquer death,” Ferran croaked. “Postponing it isn’t the same thing. A wise man would know that.”

“Then I suppose I am not a wise man,” Dante replied bitterly, gathering up the bone instrument from the floor and checking to be sure it had not cracked or leaked.

Moonlight shone more brightly through the ceiling now, and Karaburan was almost to the passageway when Dante turned toward Ferran with the bone’s sharp edge.

Almost done
, Mira thought at Ferran as she unbound the last of the men.
Keep talking!

“What will you do with our blood?” Ferran demanded, wincing as the instrument moved closer to his skin.

“It’s very technical.”

“Humor me,” insisted Ferran, balling his hands into fists.

Mira dashed toward Karaburan, her bare feet light and silent over the stone floor, her heart pounding in her ears.
The book, the book, the book, the book!

Dante sighed through his nose. His gray eyes were dull as he looked at the prince. “The blood of my betrayers to counterweight me. I am to call upon Death, and when He comes, I will barter for my wife . . . and now my daughter, too. I will try to retrieve them both, but if I must choose, I will choose my wife.” He glanced over his shoulder sadly to where Mira’s body lay on the stone floor.

It was gone.

“A trick!” Dante whirled, his eyes flashing. “What’s this?” he hissed, and looked toward Karaburan. “What have you done?”

Breathless, Mira reached Karaburan just in time.
Right here,
she told him silently. Karaburan’s blue-gray scales gleamed in the moonlight as he turned, lifting the book up to hand it to her.

“Stop!” commanded Dante, lunging at him, but it was too late.

Mira took the book with her free hand and the invisible glamour melted away, revealing her in plain sight to the others’ eyes. She stared defiantly at her father, feeling the staff pulsing with energy in her hand, the glow from the runes pouring into her arm and spreading throughout her body. The sensation filled her with sudden strength and power and her knees nearly buckled in surprise, but after a moment, she caught her breath and the magic began to settle within her like a bird upon a perch, ready to take flight when ordered.

Her father seemed frozen to the spot, his jaw slackened in disbelief. She lifted the staff and slammed it down; an earsplitting clap of thunder shook the walls of the cavern, snuffing out several torches. Dante staggered, thrown off balance by the force of it. Ferran and the other prisoners dropped down to the ground, released from the temporary binding spell.

 “Mira,” breathed Dante, his gray eyes wide. “You’re alive!”

“I am,” she answered.

“Daughter,” he swallowed cautiously, eyeing the book, the staff, and the cowering Karaburan at her side. “Whatever you think you’re doing . . . Give me my things back. Now.”

“Or what?” Her voice was amplified by newfound power, rippling throughout the cavern and echoing back again. She held the book close to her chest and tipped her head to one side. “You’ll punish me, Father? You already have.”

“Obey me,” stammered Dante, his entire body trembling like a leaf in autumn as anger seeped into his voice. “Give me my book. And my staff. You will obey me!”

“I will not,” Mira replied curtly, and felt a surge of new power wash through her. She drew a deeper breath, exploring the feeling of control. “I wondered why you never let these old things out of your sight for all these years. They’re filled with your anger, your hunger for success, your sorrow. Was that how you were planning on courting Death’s favors? By bullying her?” Mira shook her head, her heavy plait swinging. “Hardly politic of him, don’t you think, Aurael?”

“Quite rude, indeed,” agreed the spirit, stepping out of thin air behind Dante and grasping him about the throat and by the hair. His eyes were dark as pitch, and when he smiled, it was both happy and terrible. Dante gasped for air, clutching at his throat where he was held tight. “Don’t struggle, you’ll only make it better for me,” crooned the young man.