Assassin of the Damned

— 17-

I refused the evidence. Perugia, Perugia, eagle of the mountains, home to heroes. My city lay in ruins, a ghost town of overgrown vines, rubble and creaking shutters. Skeletons were strewn like fallen leaves. In the great piazza, I found overturned wagons, smashed barrels and skulls. Looters had ransacked my palace. Lichen grew on the walls.

I sat on the lip of a broken fountain, the pigeon-stained statute of Mars minus its arms. After all my haste to return, Perugia was dead. What had become of my old companions in arms? The merchants, the priests, the tanners…they were gone. By the evidence, they might have been gone for years. No. I could not have lain in the swamp for years.

I swiveled my head. A rat scurried across the weedy bricks of the piazza. Motion caught my eye to the right. An owl swooped down. At the last moment, the rat squealed, darted aside and the owl lofted upward as its talons grasped nothing but air.

What had happened to my wife? Where were Francesca and Astorre? I stared at the nearest skeleton. A snake slithered through its ribs. That reminded me that grass had grown through my chainmail. If I’d lain in the swamp years, how had my body survived?

I stood, picked up a chunk of masonry, raised it above my head and hurled it at Mars so it clanged. I lifted another and heaved so the masonry shattered, and I gouged the bronze statue. I drew the deathblade. The dagger was oily and dark. I set the razor-tip against my chest, over my heart. I frowned. My heart no longer beat. Would plunging the deathblade into it kill me? I set the edge against my neck and vaguely realized that it might prove impossible for a man to hew off his own head. I sheathed the knife, took out the silver coin and hefted it. It was my spark of life. Why should I bother to exist if my Laura, my children-

I howled and shook my fist. The urge to hurl the coin pulsed through me. It was an ache, a need, and with a roar, I flung it. The coin glittered in the dark, and it clinked against a ruin across the street.

I gasped, and a spasm caused me to sink to my knees. Good, let me perish. Let me fade into nonexistence. Oh, Laura, oh my darling Francesca. Had Erasmo slit my daughter’s throat? What grim evils had he committed upon my son?

Erasmo! He had done this. He had lured me to the swamp. He had planned revenge, and to become a Lord a Night, a ruler of this broken world. He had-

The coin glittered strangely. I heard its siren call. I began to crawl. Maybe Laura lived. Maybe my children had survived Erasmo’s treachery. Yes, Perugia lay ruined. But maybe sorcery had done this in a day. Maybe I hadn’t been gone years. I ground my teeth together in fury. There was another place where Erasmo ruled. He held the Tower of the East, whatever that was. Maybe Laura and my children were there.

As I neared the coin, strength flowed into me. I climbed to my feet, hurried to it and picked it off the bricks. I would find this Tower of the East. I would-

A terrible premonition touched me. I glanced at the starry sky. Dawn threatened. What would have happened if the sun had caught me in the open without the coin? I hurried to my old palace, to hide in the dungeon for the day. I would make plans tomorrow night when I revived.

***

I rose the next night and drifted through the ruins until my sorrow hardened into rage. I picked up a skull and stared into the sockets. Erasmo had done this. I set the skull on a table within a house. Rats scurried at the clunk. Vermin ruled Perugia now.

— There came a whispery noise from outside. I hurried to the nearest window, stood flat against the wall and peered out the shutter. There was a flicker in the air like a candle’s flame. Yet there was no source for it. The whispery, breezy noise occurred again. I had the sensation that the flicker called with an ethereal voice. I listened carefully. It called for me!

This had been the Angelo District, the people here hardy supporters of House Baglioni. Could one of their spirits have survived the city’s destruction? I climbed out the window and approached slowly. The unattached flame stretched taller. Then it zipped to me, circled once and floated near my head.

“Follow,” it whispered. Then it drifted down the street.

I drew my blade and followed warily. The faint voice had sounded familiar. Still, Erasmo had lured me into a trap once already. To allow him to do so again would be unbearable.

“Hurry,” the flame whispered, and it floated faster.

I lengthened my stride. It soon darted into the Golden Inn, a place much frequented when Perugia lived. As the flame darted to a rear room, it grew into a ghostly outline of a small woman. A cap appeared on her head, one with bells on the ends.

“Lorelei?” I asked.

She beckoned me toward a room, and walked through the door.

I tried the handle. Locked. I pushed, but it was sturdy oak. So I lowered my shoulder and charged. Wood splintered. The heavy door thumped into a dusty room. If I’d breathed, I would have been coughing amongst all the dust.

Lorelei’s ghost pointed at an old chest in the corner. I tried it and found it locked, and smashed a hole with my fist.

“There’s a silver dagger,” she whispered.

I rummaged through moth-eaten rags until I found it.

“Pick it up, please,” she whispered.

I hesitated, and then picked it up. Immediately, her form gained greater substance. Her hat’s bells tinkled as she nodded approval.

“Good,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Lorelei?” I asked.

“This is my wraith.”

I frowned.

“That’s the wrong nomenclature, isn’t it? This is my spirit. I’m locked in the castle, a prisoner of the priestess of the Moon.” She grimaced. “Through the ages I’ve provided for various contingences. If I could send my spirit hither and yon, without aid, I’d be akin to a goddess. The dagger is my focus.”

I only half listened. “What happened to my city?”

“The plague began there.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“Listen-”

“Where’s my wife?”

“You’ve badly frightened Erasmo. There are signs-that doesn’t matter.” She glanced over her shoulder, faced me again and spoke faster. “He’s summoned the black knight-”

“He can’t be Orlando Furioso,” I said, “Charlemagne’s old champion.”

“My jailers could interrupt us at any moment. So you must let me talk. I think I’ve discovered Erasmo’s secret. How he found out-that doesn’t matter, either. Prince Gian, there are other Earths than ours. How and why this is so I have no idea. Erasmo employed an ancient spell, a terrible and dangerous thing. He opened a door to a destroyed Earth, one where Perugia, Rome, all Italy never existed. Armageddon came early there, or so I suspect.”

“That’s lunacy,” I said.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Erasmo took a terrible risk.”

“No. The very idea of…of other Earths is madness.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “All I know is that he returned with the Black Death, which he released in Perugia. The millions of dead-you’ve seen the results. Erasmo and his cohorts now possess a dreadful sorcery, and through it, they reshape men as if they were wax.”

“Erasmo must die,” I said. “Where is the Tower of the East?”

“He built it on the ruins of Venice.”

I swayed. Great Venice with its mighty arsenal, its merchant galleys and sea captains and its maze of canals was gone?

“How did that happen?” I asked.

Lorelei nodded. “Erasmo and the other Lords of Night are reshaping our world. The how is related to his single journey. Yet he lacked the sorcerous power-he plans to return there.”

“Return where?” I asked.

“The door lies in Perugia. I’m certain of it. I think Erasmo moves sooner than he wanted. Your appearance has frightened him. The priestess agrees with that. This time he desires help, the reason why he summoned Orlando Furioso. The destroyed Earth is reputed to be a grim place. The journey is perilous, yet the rewards for Erasmo are apparently tremendous.”

“You wanted me in Perugia,” I said.

“You hate Erasmo, yes?”

“Are you the Moon Lady in disguise?”

“I wish it were so,” she said, “for my sake. No. I am the third way, as I told you before.”

“I saw the black knight in Velluti,” I said. “He came to collect creatures called lycanthropes.”

Her spirit paled, becoming fainter so I could see through her.

“Erasmo is mad, as you suggest. Lycanthropes,” she shook her head. “Erasmo seeks the Trumpet of Blood. He needs it for his Grand Conjuration. If he can complete it, we, you, the Earth is doomed with him as its new god.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

“I’ve heard the oracles,” she said. “Listen and you’ll understand. ‘The first angel sounded his trumpet and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the Earth. A third of the Earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.’ Erasmo seeks the trumpet used on the dead Earth, the one where Armageddon has already taken place. He must believe he has sufficient sorcerous strength to bring the dread object into our world. How he thinks he could wind it here-”

Lorelei’s spirit clutched my wrist, or she tried. Her hand passed through me, although a numbing sensation caused me to drop the silver dagger. She faded as the blade hit wood.

I snatched up the dagger.

“That almost broke the spell,” she whispered, her spirit solidifying by degrees. “Don’t drop it again.”

“Where’s my wife? What happened to my children?”

Lorelei turned her head and looked at something I couldn’t see. Fear washed over her elfin features. She turned back to me.

“You must stop, Erasmo, or these terrible changes to our world will become permanent.”

Lorelei twisted around, raised her arms and spoke a harsh word. The knife grew hot. I let go, and as it fell, I saw Lorelei as she stood in a small room. A door opened there. I think it was in the castle that grew. I glimpsed a silver robe. Then the dagger clunked onto the table and Lorelei, the room and the image of the moon priestess vanished.

***

I climbed rotted stairs and seemed to have developed a sense for which ones would creak. Those I avoided. It was slow going, but soon I reached a trapdoor. I pushed, and winced as the hinges s-q-u-e-a-l-e-d. Above me, a startled bat flapped away.

I crawled into a watchtower that was moldy with bat guano. Floorboards groaned at my weight. I reached an arch filthy with webs. In the corner, a spider bit the thorax of a squirming bug. I concentrated on the road outside Perugia’s main gate.

The black knight had hobbled his horse there and tended a fire. Strange creatures crouched nearby, although farther away from the flames. Two lay like lions, curled in sleep. A third hunched like a primitive man and gnawed on a bone.

Lorelei’s spirit…could I believe her? I believed the black knight knew the whereabouts of my wife and children. I would trail him and await my opportunity to touch him with my knife and learn exactly where Laura was. And if Erasmo arrived, I’d kill him.

I wondered if the ruins frightened them enough so they waited until daylight to enter. Their actions seemed to say I was the evil creature that haunted Perugia. I studied the stars. There was less than an hour of night left. I decided to in the tower during the day.

Soon, the knight took off his armor and stretched out on a cloak. The lycanthropes slunk into nearby thickets. Then I knew no more, forced under my cloak as the sun rose.