Assassin of the Damned

— 34-

Rubble and giant chunks of masonry blocked my way. What had happened up there? Had the spell failed? Had Erasmo killed himself? I felt cheated, but his death-

I heard him. He still chanted. His voice was hoarse. He sounded old.

I grabbed a huge boulder of masonry and heaved. It rolled away, but other huge chunks blocked the way. It would take hours to clear them.

I retreated into the room. The window was the only way. Despite my wound, I limped to it and looked up. Stone blocks had moved. The roof was gone. The air stirred, but not with shrieks or with thunderous booms. A mist drifted before the moon and the stars. Far below were the castle grounds, the low buildings. Nothing surged along the patterned roads now. They were empty of spirits. Maybe the spell had already devoured them.

I climbed out the window. I reached up, found a wedge of space because of the moved stones and dared crawl out onto the gargantuan tower. The air stirred my cloak. It was not a boom of sound, yet the gentle stir terrified me more than the flame powers had. The stir, the gentle sound, almost the still breeze-if there was such a thing-carried more threat than the sea monsters. The being came. The one Erasmo summoned approached. I felt it. Maybe the whole world did. It was like being in the eye of a hurricane.

I slithered up the Tower of the East like a lizard. I would have liked to soak more moonbeams. Time had run out on that. I had what I had. I must move. I must attack.

A hoarse laugh sounded. It was Erasmo. “Come,” he said. “I have summoned thee. You must come and obey my commands.”

I climbed. Throughout all those booms and sorcery, the tower had shifted. Stones groaned even now, unbalanced stones held in place by weight. They ached to be free.

I reached an opening into the dread chamber. The roof had vanished. Only half the walls stood. On the floor, rubble and stones lay across glowing lines of power. The Trumpet of Blood stood on a golden stand. It gleamed silvery pure one moment and wetly red like blood the next. The stand and trumpet were outside the pattern of lines. Erasmo stood in the very center of the pattern. He stood straight in his blue jacket and golden boots. He was big like me, had an oiled beard and hard eyes. A sword hung from his belt. Costly rings decorated his fingers. He wore a black amulet, but this time it lacked a fire. Maybe it had left with the flame powers.

Ah. Blood stained his shoulder. The one I had cut in the dead world. Blood soaked his side. He coughed, and he smiled. He raised his arms. The left one he raised gingerly. A grimace of pain twitched across his face.

“I feel you,” he said. “I order you to show yourself. It is time to begin my transformation.”

I wriggled through the opening in the wall. It scraped my skin. Maybe he heard the sound. As I jumped to the floor, he turned. Amazement filled his face.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked.

I ran fingers through my hair. Here he was. Here was the object of my hatred. The thirst to kill him made me giddy.

“Why do you wear my likeness?” he asked.

I barely swallowed a bray of laughter. His likeness, why did I wear his likeness? Why did he wear mine?

I strode toward the Trumpet of Blood.

“Do you mock me?” Erasmo asked.

I ignored him.

He flexed his ringed fingers. “You must obey me this night,” he said. “You are bound to me. I am the master. You are the slave.”

I stopped, not because of any power of his. I realized that he thought I was the creature he had summoned.

“Face me,” Erasmo said.

I faced him.

“You will explain to me why you wear my likeness,” he said.

“Where are your wife and children?” I asked.

“Do you jest?” he asked.

“First you must-”

“Gian!” he said. “You’re Gian.”

“Where’s Laura?”

“You must leave,” Erasmo said. “I sent Laura and Francesca away. They’re with Anaximander.”

I snarled, and took a step toward him.

“I sent them to another realm,” Erasmo said. “If you hope to see them again, you must obey me.”

“Where’s Astorre?”

Erasmo shook his head. “Your son was stubborn. He tried to kill me. He died because of it.”

“You killed my son?”

“Think carefully, Gian. Anaximander has your wife and daughter. Only I know where he went. You must leave now. You must depart if you love them.”

I drew the deathblade. I crossed the first of his many lines. I entered the pattern. “I am the Darkling, Erasmo. You tried to kill me, twice now. It’s my turn.”

He drew his sword, and he shouted wildly. I ran and smashed my hand against his and sent the blade skittering across the room.

“This is interesting.”

Erasmo and I turned. There, across the lines and near the Trumpet of Blood, stood a shimmering being. His features were handsome one moment and devilish the next.

“Sound the trumpet!” Erasmo screamed. “Hurry! Do as I command!”

The shimmering being frowned. His arm lifted toward the trumpet. The arm seemed to move on its own accord.

The being said, “This is a hard thing you ask.”

“I order you!” Erasmo shouted. “I ask nothing, but demand it.”

I cracked my knuckles across Erasmo’s face. He struggled. I hit him again, and I had a moment of terrible inspiration.

I shouted, “Demon!”

The shimmering being looked at me, and he kept his features ugly.

I shoved Erasmo. He gave a bloodcurdling scream and staggered across the lines of the pattern. I’d shoved hard. Erasmo staggered and he flailed his arms.

The demon, or whatever he was, caught Erasmo. “This is very interesting,” the demon said with a malignant grin.

“Please,” Erasmo sobbed.

“I release you back to wherever you came,” I shouted. “Begone.”

“No!” Erasmo screamed, “no, no, anything but that. Don’t let him take me.”

“Now we shall see who orders whom, my little sorcerer,” the demon said. He made an imperious gesture, lifted Erasmo and walked through a hazy portion of air. The air closed. The demon, and Erasmo della Rovere, were gone.

***

My shoulders sagged. He was gone. Erasmo was gone from this world. He went to whatever Hell the thing he’d summoned had came from. I knew the legends of demons and sorcerers and what happened to sorcerers who improperly summoned them. The lines of protection, the magical pattern, kept the sorcerer safe from demonic retribution. To break the pattern or step out of it while the demon remained always spelled a horrible doom.

What was a demon but a fallen angel? Erasmo had needed an angel to blow the Trumpet of Blood. What did he care the status of said angel? The power was the thing.

Erasmo was gone. And he had sent Laura and Francesca to another place with Anaximander.

The tower swayed. Stones groaned.

What had Ippolita Conti told me? Ah. Once Erasmo died, the Tower of the East would fall apart. That was part of my last minute inspiration. To see and feel Erasmo die in my arms, oh, I’d yearned for that. Yet to achieve that meant I would’ve had to die with him. Could I survive the tower’s destruction? I had not believed so.

The Tower of the East had stood when Erasmo had crossed to the doomed Earth before. Surely the tower would stand now as the demon took him elsewhere. Demons were demonic, masters of torture. I did not think the demon would simply snuff out Erasmo’s life. That meant the tower would stand, maybe long enough for me to make my escape.

I stumbled to the trumpet. What should I do with it? If someone blew it…a third of the world’s green grasses would burn up.

I picked up the trumpet. It was heavy, and it gave my arm a strange sensation. For a moment, I had the insane desire to set my lips to it and attempt to blow. I smothered the desire. I put the trumpet in my bag. Then I hurried to an open edge and slid my legs over. It was time to flee before the tower came crashing down. It was time to get Ippolita Conti.

***

I waded deep into the Adriatic Sea. I’d trudged for nights. Each day I’d stopped. It was cold down here in the depths. I hated it. Moonbeams struggled to reach this far.

I stopped. I had no idea where exactly I stood. What I mean is that I doubted I could ever retrace my steps to this exact spot again. I scooped mud. I scooped a long time. Then I opened my bag and took out the dread Trumpet of Blood. I set it in the hole and for a long time shoved the mud back. I buried the terrible trumpet in some nameless spot in the Adriatic Sea.

I thought of something to say. Rather, I thought of some grand thought to think. Nothing came. I turned ninety degrees and began to walk toward the east shore of Italy.

I’d killed Erasmo della Rovere, or I had as good as killed him. I’d taken Ippolita Conti to Carlo da Canale for safety.

I walked underwater through a forest of seaweeds. I would find where Anaximander had taken my wife and daughter. I find that place and then I would go there and rescue them. I knew that I would do this thing, for I was once the prince of Perugia, Gian Baglioni, and I was the Darkling.