The Chamber of Ten

XVI

THE ONLY reason the bastard had let go of her hair was that it made it easier to walk.

They’d already passed two groups of people who had protested at his treatment of her, and both times Aretino had merely glanced at Foscari. The first time, the other Doge had chosen one of the complaining men and beaten him, flooring him quickly and then stomping on his knees until Geena heard the sickening crunch of bones and the heavy silence of shock. The second time, Foscari had only approached the two young couples and they’d seen something in his eyes that made them flee. Such casual violence was nauseating, made her sick to her soul. But it also made her realize that these two men—if indeed men they still were—were totally in charge.

Aretino walked ahead, his old man’s body moving with confidence. The white knotted beard and shriveled face were misleading. When he’d let go of her hair at last, he had not even instructed her to follow, but she knew if she did not she would suffer. Besides, Foscari was behind her. Close behind. Sometimes she swore she could feel his breath on the back of her neck, and she had felt his hand brush casually across her ass several times. And if I turn and punch him in the fucking nose? she thought. She had no wish to find out. Aretino had said they needed to talk, but he had not said she needed her knees unbroken to do so.

She was terrified. That evening she had been stupid enough to believe that she could find a few hours away from this madness—from Nico and his crazy ghost, the deaths she had witnessed, and the fact that she’d been infected by some black magic plague less than twelve hours ago. Repair the foundations of the existence she and Nico had together, in the hope that they would be able to reconstruct the walls of their life when this whole bizarre mess was over. Now she saw how foolish she had been. And perhaps blind. Maybe she had been driven a little mad by what had happened, and though she had a mind that she thought was open and willing to explore, the certainty of what was happening might have been too much for her to handle.

But that was nothing compared to this.

She’d seen Nico burn a man to death by looking at him, and …

And Ramus.

She sobbed once and slowed down. Foscari walked into her—on purpose, she was sure—and grabbed her upper arms.

“You shouldn’t keep Aretino waiting,” he whispered, hot breath in her ear. She shrugged him off and walked on.

Hope. She had to cling to that. Nico had been shot, but it was Volpe who possessed him—a magician who had returned from a five-hundred-year limbo to cast his influence across the city once again. Nico had been moving on the ground even with a bullet hole through him, painting those weird signs against the Venetian night to protect himself against the Doges’ hired help, and surely that meant that Volpe was shielding him from the effects of the wound? Could he do that?

Hope. Prisoner of two old men who should have died half a millennium before, she had little else.

She tried to keep track of where they were taking her, but their route quickly became confused. After several years here she thought she had a good understanding of the city’s geography, but Aretino led them along alleyways she had never seen, into courtyards that might have changed little since he had been banished from the city, and she could only follow.

Before long, any thought of making a break for it had gone. If she did run and somehow escape Foscari’s grasp, she would have to sprint to lose him in this warren of alleys and shadows, narrow bridges and small cobbled squares, and she’d just as likely emerge onto a dead-end before a canal. No, she needed a plan. She already had the sense that Aretino was the one with the power, and Foscari the more physical of the two. To escape them both, she’d need a plan that covered all angles.

“Ahh, my old Venice at last,” Aretino said, and Geena shivered. It was as if speaking of the city he’d once loved and coveted brought its oldest places alive around him, shoving them back through centuries to a time that these men had called home. It was a foolish notion, but as they walked between buildings that leaned so close together that they almost seemed to touch, walls dripping with clematis and climbing roses, Geena desperately looked for signs of the present. Who knew what powers these men had? If they could defeat time by living to this unbelievable age, perhaps they could manipulate and mold it to their liking.

How will he find me? she thought, imagining Nico even now scouring the streets and canals for her with Volpe’s help. If they take me back to their time, will he see me represented on some buried fresco? Find my bones in an old tomb he might uncover years from now? How will he even know it’s me? She had never felt so disassociated from her surroundings, an intruder in the city she had grown to love.

Aretino paused and glanced back at her, smiling as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “This might interest you.”

“Nothing you do or say can interest me,” she countered, but his wrinkled smile didn’t slip, so she added, “Fucker.”

Aretino shrugged. “Maybe I’m wrong. We know so little about you, really, but what we have learned in the short time we’ve been aware of your existence—the short time we’ve known of that traitor Volpe’s tenacity and his hold on the one you love—leads me to believe you exist in the past.”

He was listening to my thoughts! she thought. But no, it was merely Aretino’s manner of speaking. She knew what having her thoughts and mind read felt like.

She did not reply. Foscari moved in close again and she pressed her lips tightly together, resisting the inclination to step away from him. He did not touch her, but he was so close that she could feel the heat of his body.

“It doesn’t matter,” Aretino said, waving one hand dismissively. “When we reach our destination, I’ll tell you what you must do to preserve the life of the one you love, and also your own.” He turned and slipped through a short alley, and Geena followed. They emerged on the other side onto a narrow path beside a canal, and she sighed with relief. One of the windows across the canal flickered with that blank silvery light that could only be a television, brightness rising and fading again as the picture changed. And from another window, she heard the shrill ringing of a phone, and then a brusque man’s voice answered.

They were still in the present. Her imagination must have been working overtime.

It was minutes later when Aretino opened an old door set in the façade of a building Geena had never seen before, that their journey back in time really began.

“What is this place?” Geena asked, instantly hating herself for vocalizing her astonishment.

They had walked through an empty, dilapidated room to a door set in the wall at the far side, plastered and painted over many times. Foscari had used a heavy knife to trace the line of the door—his knife strokes fast, strong, and unerringly accurate—and then Aretino had shoved it open. A breath of musty air, a staircase heading down, thirteen steps … and then this.

“Just an old house,” Aretino said, dismissing a hoard of artwork that was probably close to priceless. Paintings lay stacked against one wall, and the lead canvas on one pile looked like something Masaccio might have created. Exquisite old furniture was piled against another wall, along with sculptures in various states of completion, one of which looked like a brass pulpit created by Donatello. On a huge table lay hundreds of scattered sheets of paper and canvas, stored carelessly and in no discernable order, and Geena glimpsed the unmistakable cogs and lines of a da Vinci. Gasping, trying not to reveal her amazement, she followed Aretino through the room.

He was smiling. She could feel that even before he turned around.

“Interested?” he asked.

She did not answer. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. But she could not keep her eyes on him—she kept glancing to the left and right, thinking how much her friends and colleagues would give to spend some time in this room. Domenic would love the paintings, Tonio would be hugging some of the incredible sculptures she saw, and Ramus …

Ramus never had been able to contain his enthusiasm. He’d possessed a love and fascination for old art that belied his young age. The last she’d seen of him was as that blond woman had been stabbing him, the murderous attack only fleetingly visible from the square outside the café. An attack at the Doges’ behest.

“Don’t you want to know how?” Aretino asked.

“Fuck you.”

He raised his eyebrows—gray slugs over eyes that should no longer sparkle. “Manners have certainly fled since we were last here, don’t you think, Francesco?”

Foscari, still behind Geena, placed a hand on her shoulder. He squeezed lightly, released, and squeezed again. She couldn’t help thinking that he was kneading her. It filled her with disgust, but she pretended he wasn’t there.

“You want to tell me what a wonderful thief you were when you were alive?” Geena asked.

“Not quite,” Aretino said, frowning slightly. “A collector. And a cautious one, at that.”

“So when you were alive, you liked collecting?” Geena could see that she was getting to him. The old bastard’s eyes had changed infinitesimally, shedding a hint of smugness and taking on irritation. But if the best she could do was to irritate him … well, so be it.

“Few people have seen any of these pieces since I was sent from the city by your Volpe,” Aretino said softly.

“He’s not my Volpe!”

“And yet you and he have copulated.”

“No!” Geena said, but when she glanced away from the Doge and back again she saw the smugness had returned.

“There are many places in the city like this,” he said, sweeping his hand around the basement. Its walls were dry, without any signs of damp, and she thought again of the Chamber of Ten. That place had been hidden away for so long, there was no reason now to doubt what the Doge was saying. “Not all are filled with such riches. One has a small table upon which rests a book that would change the world. Others, my old belongings. One place so close to the Doge’s palace that the same air circulates through its rooms has a single sealed box.” He paused and raised an eyebrow expectantly.

“What’s inside?” Geena asked.

Aretino smiled, lifted one hand, and before he could speak Geena snapped, “You’re just a dead thing!”

The impact was sharp and sudden, yet not unexpected. Foscari’s fist was hard with knuckles knotted. Geena fell. She preferred being punched than molested, though, and as she sat up she looked at the Doge, exuding hatred.

“Watch your tongue, Dr. Hodge,” Aretino said. “My cousin does not like women who speak out of turn.”

Geena felt a sickening laugh gurgle in her throat. “All of this … just to get your things back?”

“Not at all,” Aretino said. Smiling, he glanced around the room. “Don’t misunderstand; there are many pieces of our history that we are very pleased to be able to reacquire. Things that are rightfully ours. But there is only one thing in all of Venice that we truly needed.”

“Access to the tomb of Akylis,” Geena said.

Foscari stared at her in fury. Aretino arched his eyebrows in surprise and then smiled in approval.

“It appears that Volpe has shared more with you than we had imagined,” Aretino said.

He must have seen the surprise on her own face when she realized that Volpe had been telling the truth all along.

“Ah, you doubted him,” Aretino said. “As well you should.”

“Why do you even need Akylis’ magic?” Geena demanded. “You’ve lived six hundred years. If you have enough power for that, what more magic do you need?”

Aretino’s dancing eyes grew cold and still. “We have spent five centuries surviving, when we should have been ruling. Volpe tried to end us, tried to exterminate our entire bloodline, but all he did was postpone the inevitable. Now our family will rise, and with the dark power Akylis left behind, we will cover the world. We will be the new gods and Venice the new Olympus.”

Geena looked into those eyes and saw madness staring back.

“But they’re all dead,” she whispered. “You have no family left. Just the two of you. Are you going to send thugs and assassins out into the rest of the world to try to take over? Even with Akylis’ magic—”

“Don’t be stupid,” Foscari snarled at her, darting in close enough that she felt his spittle on her cheek. “We have family. Volpe took them from us, just as he took all of this—” He spread his arms wide, indicating the treasures in the room. “And all of Venice. But like the rest of it … we have taken them back.”

Geena felt all the blood draining from her face. The tomb, she thought. The bodies. How many Foscari cousins, uncles, distant relatives had Volpe had killed and buried in that crypt under the building in Dorsoduro? A hundred? Two hundred?

The Doges had stolen them back.

“With the magic you’re taking from Akylis’ burial well …” she began, the truth striking her at last. “You’re going to raise them from the dead.”

She tried to imagine it—two hundred Caravellos, Aretinos, and Foscaris resurrected and restored to life, filled with the dark power of Akylis and sent out into the world to conspire and manipulate, to magically influence governments and corporations, all to draw the reins tight on the entire globe and put them in the hands of the Doges.

“This is a waste of time,” Foscari growled. “Show her, Pietro, and then let me show her what I have for her.”

“You hear that?” Aretino said. “Francesco wants to rape you. You’re just his type, too. I doubt you’d submit without a fight.”

Geena did not satisfy either man with an answer. Instead she examined her left hand where she’d grazed it as she fell, and brushed droplets of blood from another deep scratch across one elbow.

“Bring her!” Aretino said, and Geena knew instantly that their game was over. Foscari grabbed her beneath the arms and lifted—his strength was impressive for someone over five hundred years old—and hefted her upright, half pushing, half carrying her after Aretino. They passed items of priceless art and antiquity, and though she struggled to remain composed, Geena could not help her amazement.

They opened another door that had also been sealed shut and descended another flight of stairs. Geena knew that they were well below the waterline now, and she wondered whether whatever had held the waters back from the Chamber of Ten also worked here. From the vague memories of Volpe’s that she’d seen and sensed, these Doges were mere dabblers in magic when they were banished, not master practitioners like him.

She was curious, but she did not want to ask.

At the foot of this new staircase was a small chamber, hacked from the ground without any aesthetic consideration. Its walls were uneven, ceiling and floor rough, and it was barely ten feet across. At its center stood a small wooden stool. On the stool was a sealed clay container. The container bore no marks or decoration, and the clay looked delicate.

“This,” Aretino said, gently touching the urn, “is our protection.”

“I’m really not interested—” Geena began, and Foscari thumped her in the kidneys. She went down to her knees, biting back a groan but closing her eyes as the pain tore through her torso. Bastard bastard bastard! she thought. She remembered Volpe jamming his knife under Caravello’s chin and up into his brain, and she so wished she had a blade.

“Just tell her and get it over with,” Foscari said, his voice heavy with something other than anger. “Then I’ll have her before we send her back.”

Geena’s eyes snapped open. Aretino glanced from her to the Doge standing behind her, but she could not read his expression. He’s in charge, she thought. A word from him and …

“It’s delicate,” he said, touching the urn again. “It has to be. When the waters pour through and these walls come down, it has to break. Even if it doesn’t, its salt seal will dissolve over time and release what’s inside. But the sort of revenge I’d want … I’d need it to be quick.”

“So what’s in there?” Geena asked.

“Something you’ve had already.”

Plague. She shuddered, remembering the magical contagion that had nearly killed her and Nico, the sores and the blood and the certainty that her lungs would flood and her throat would swell until she died.

“While Volpe has been guarding this city from a place of rest, the three of us have been busy. We couldn’t return home for five hundred years because of that interfering bastard, but that hasn’t meant that we have lost all influence over people within the city, nor have we been unable to send people in and bring them out as desired. Volpe slept, and we were building. Volpe rested, and we worked. All we needed was the magic of Akylis to bring our plans to fruition. Now we have it. And if anything happens to us, the city dies.”

Geena understood. Some form of magic held the water from this chamber, just as it had in the Chamber of Ten. By sending clumsy magicians from the city instead of killing them, Volpe had given them time to mature, learn their craft, and plot their eventual revenge. He’d been weak, too concerned with the opinions of the Council of Ten to take proper care of the city he professed to love. By ridding it of its potential dictators, he created Venice’s greatest enemies.

“There are other places,” Foscari said. “Seven, all told. The spell that holds the waters out will only endure as long as at least one of us survives. If all three of us are killed—the two of us, now that Caravello is dead—the walls come down, the urns shatter, and the plague is released.”

Foscari seemed afraid that Geena had remembered the way here. He wanted to make sure she knew there were other such plague rooms. Which means there must be a way to stop this! she thought, To undo all of it. Otherwise he wouldn’t have needed to tell me that.

“So while Volpe slept, you’ve been catching up on James Bond movies,” she said. “And now that I know your diabolical plan, I suppose you’re going to kill me.”

“Not at all,” Aretino said. “Actually, we’re going to release you. You will have until dawn to bring Volpe to us, or we will kill the city.”

“You’re bluffing,” she said, heart missing a beat. “You love this city. You’d never—”

“We do love the city,” Aretino said, and Foscari leaned in close behind her again, his hands slipping around to her breasts, wet mouth against her neck.

“But only because it is home to us, to our family, going back fifteen hundred years,” Foscari said. “The rest of the people of Venice mean nothing to us. Once they’re dead and gone, we’d still have the city itself. Scoured clean. Simple enough to start anew.”

“But we don’t wish for that,” Aretino said. There was a hint of reprimand in his voice, and Foscari moved back. Geena wanted to wipe the places where he had touched, but she crossed her arms instead.

“I’ll do it,” she said, looking at the clay urn. She did not have to feign her fear, nor her disgust at the choice they had given her. “But I can’t bring him here. He’d never believe that I’d found this place on my own.”

“We don’t want you to bring him here,” Aretino said. “You’ll bring him to the Chamber of Ten. At dawn, we will meet there, and there will be an end to this.”

Geena pretended to think on this, looking down at the Doge’s feet, frowning. If Aretino had not suggested the Chamber of Ten, she would have done it herself. It could work to her advantage, if she was very persuasive and very lucky. Will there be time … will Volpe listen … will he believe me … And did Domenic do as I asked?

“The Chamber of Ten,” she said softly. “Why there?”

“You think yourself so clever,” Foscari said. “I’m certain you’ll figure it out.”

“The Chamber,” Aretino said, eyes widening, smile growing, and a small ripple of doubt went through Geena. Have I really done the right thing? But it was too late to back out now. “The Chamber, by dawn.”

Behind her, Geena heard Foscari’s breath growing more rapid. She stared at Aretino without blinking. He nodded slowly, then drew a small shape in the air before her with his unnaturally long index finger. The shape seemed to hang suspended for a few seconds, like a smoke ring that slowly dissipated. She blinked, swayed a little, frowned.

“Away from here,” Aretino said to her at last. “Quickly. But if there is any deceit on your part, any schemes, think better of it. We have been alive—truly alive, woman—for long enough to outsmart anything your feeble mind might conjure. And Foscari’s attentions will be only your first punishment.”

Dismissed, Geena had no desire to linger a moment longer. She turned and pushed past Foscari, up the stairs and through the room holding the priceless treasures. Denying the temptation to stop and examine them, she climbed the next staircase to the bare room above. She still felt strange, and it was only when she exited the building onto the canal path that she began to realize what was wrong. But by then she could not stop. She walked without appreciating direction, passing through alleys she instantly forgot, crossing bridges she thought she had never seen before and would never be able to identify. Direction meant nothing, and struggle though she did, she could not construct a map of where she was or where she had been in her mind. She paused and turned around, going back the way she had come, but every square, courtyard, alley, and canalside walk was unknown to her, all of them blending into one.

So she kept walking through the night until the time came when she no longer tried to recall where she had been, but rather craved something familiar.

The first touch of Nico’s mind on hers made her cry out with joy.

When Nico regained consciousness, he was surrounded by the dead. The room, lit by several weak candles that all seemed to be sputtering their last, was filled with skeletons. They were piled on shelves carved into the walls, one on top of the other like firewood stacked against the winter. They were propped in alcoves several deep, held in place like collected insects by long pikes driven through rib cages; he could not tell whether they’d been pinned there before or after death. In one far corner there was a pile of skulls, and all of them bore signs of trauma to their pale domes. Other bones scattered the floor, tangled with shreds of rotten clothing. Candlelight shifted here and there, and the shadows cast into skulls’ eyes blinked at him, arm bones moved, and clawed fingers clasped at the floor as they tried to pull themselves closer.

None of that shocked him. What did shock him was the weight in his chest. It felt as though his heart had been ripped out—

—Il Conte hacking away, breaking, reaching in—

—and replaced with a lead weight. When he breathed he hardly felt his chest move, and his lungs were burning.

What has he done to me now? Nico thought, and he wondered how many of these skeletons were made by Volpe’s bidding.

I’ve healed you, fool, Volpe’s voice said.

Nico looked down at his chest. He was shirtless, and the place where he’d been shot—just to the left of his sternum, an inch higher than his nipple—was a mass of heavy purple, green, and yellow bruising. He touched himself there with his right hand, running his fingertips across his puffy skin in search of the bullet hole. But it was not there.

A hair’s breadth closer to your heart and you would have bled to death, Volpe said.

“And you?” But the old magician did not answer that. “So where are we?” Nico asked, but already the memories were coming back at him, punching in with each fresh revelation—Ramus’ death, Foscari shooting him gleefully in the chest, Geena being taken by that bastard Aretino—and Volpe did not answer straightaway.

It was easier to cure the wound when you were unconscious. Magic’s influence can be … indelicate sometimes. And the heart is most delicate. It took a while, but you’re well now. I’m well. Now we both need rest.

“But they took Geena,” Nico said.

They won’t hurt her. Not yet.

“How can you be sure?”

Because they want me, and you and I are inextricably bound.

“So they’ll use her as bait,” Nico said coldly.

Of course.

“You sound tired,” Nico said, and Volpe did not reply. He was still there—Nico could feel him, looming in his mind like a shadow in blazing sunlight—but he was musing, his silence loaded with something important.

Nico sighed and closed his eyes. This would have been a great find for any archaeologist, and some vague part of him hoped that he’d discover where they were and remember it. But such considerations seemed like part of a life he no longer knew. Here he was surrounded by bones bearing evidence of violent deaths, and he felt calm. Not quite at home, but settled. He breathed in deeply and smelled dust.

You sought memories that were not your own, Volpe thought. Nico had never heard such caution in that voice. You … forced your way in.

Nico opened his eyes and sat up. He had full control of his body, and he looked around to confirm that, lifting one hand, then the other. He felt righteous rage building inside him, and knew that Volpe would feel it as well. He stood. The chamber’s ceiling was low and brushed his head, and whilst standing he seemed to look down on all the bones and skulls, viewing them as if from the position of a conquering warrior.

Those were not your things to know, Volpe continued. Magic is a dangerous thing, and does not bestow itself upon just anyone. There was a hesitancy to his voice now, and Nico was enjoying the feeling of subtle power it gave him. Volpe did not sound afraid, not quite … but the things Nico had seen were obviously precious to him. The memories were still clear, though disjointed.

What do you expect me to do about it?

“I expect you to forget,” Volpe said.

Nico lashed out. He kicked at a skull, and it shattered beneath his boot, bone shards ricocheting around the room. He turned on the spot, looking for something else to hit or kick, and it was only as his anger bubbled over that he realized, There’s no door to this place.

“I forced my way in?” he shouted. “Then what the fuck did you do to me? Serves you right. How do you like it?” He stalked across the chamber and stomped on a pile of skeletons, feeling a wave of queasiness as they cracked and crumbled beneath his boot. His chest felt heavy and hot, but he could not describe it exactly as pain, more the memory of pain having been there. Right then, he might have welcomed its return.

Volpe held back and let Nico expend his anger. It did not take very long. He turned from the bones he had broken and knelt again in the center of the chamber, shaking, sweating, and thinking of those knives plunging into Volpe’s torso over and over again. Each shred of memory brought a stab of pain in his own chest, and he wondered whether Volpe could transmit to him exactly what it had felt like. Probably. He was the old magician’s mannequin, and though this burst of fury felt good, he was sure that Volpe could stop it at any moment.

“Once the remaining two are put down, you’ll be rid of me,” Volpe said. Nico felt those bloodied memories drawn away, and he frowned as he tried to hold on to them. “They are the threat right now,” the magician continued, the sound of his voice surprising Nico. He’d not sensed the takeover, and now it felt natural speaking as Volpe.

I don’t want any of this, Nico thought.

“We’re in a place I haven’t been to for a long time,” Volpe said, as if answering a question. Control of Nico’s body remained with him, and he relaxed back onto his haunches as Volpe spoke. He could not deny his interest. “Even years before I died, I had no cause to come here. We’re deep beneath my family tomb on San Michele, in the buried ruin of the church that once stood here. This place houses the remains of those who wronged my family and friends over the decades and centuries.”

Popular family, Nico said, looking around and trying to guess how many were entombed down here. There were too many to count.

“When you’re at the forefront of progress, there are always those keen to hold you back.” Volpe took subtle control and pointed at the stacked skeletons, and those pinned against the walls. “Some were brought here dead, this was simply a place to dispose of them.” Then he indicated bones scattered across the floor, not all of them as a result of Nico’s brief show of anger. “Others were put here alive.”

Nico could barely comprehend the fate of those thrown in here still alive, dying in a darkness full of rotting cadavers. So why bring me here now? he asked.

“Recuperation,” Volpe said. “The gunshot damaged more than I can touch right away. You feel well because I’m holding back the pain. I’m accepting it myself.”

The hesitant voice, Nico thought. The caution. It’s because he’s in pain. And … afraid of the Doges?

“No,” Volpe said. “Cautious. They know the city, but never knew this place. I believe the Doges are hidden in a mansion in Dorsoduro. That’s where they will have Geena. For either of us to get what we want, we will have to kill them both. But before we can face them, you must heal. While fighting them, I cannot also take on your pain. And it would be crippling to you.”

Nico touched his chest again and felt Volpe withdraw. His skin felt warm, but the heavy weight inside his chest gave out no real sensations. He almost thanked Volpe, but felt little real gratitude.

“How long do we have to wait?” he asked.

Awhile, Volpe said, and he was fading further away.

“Where’s the door?” Nico asked. He was looking around the chamber again, trying to perceive squared edges in the uneven shadows. But all he sensed from Volpe was a smile, and then nothing.

So he sat down for a while and rested, closing his eyes, breathing calmly and smelling age and candle wax, and the dust of broken bones. And when he thought Volpe was deep enough and far enough away, Nico opened his mind and perception and thought, Geena, I’m alive, and I’ll guide you in.