Devil's Lair (33 page)

“No.”

“You are cursed.”

“It is a gift.”

“Grandchildren are a gift.
Children are a curse. But you wouldn’t know that, would you?”

“I tried, Mama.”

“What man will have you
now?”

“Only God.”

“He sent you here. But I’m
sure the Devil will have you. If he hasn’t already.”

“Don’t hate me, Mama.”

Nadja bent down to kiss her
mother’s cheek, but the woman turned her head away, spurning her daughter’s
love.

Then Nadja knew the truth.
Perhaps she had always known it, but here in Caina, surrounded by the lost
souls of those who betrayed their kin, Nadja could deny it no longer.
Oh,
Mama.
The revelation
overwhelmed her.

“It was you,” she said. “You
told the priest I was the Devil’s spawn.”

“I made my confession.”

“You told them I was a witch.”

“You were always evil.”

“I wanted to be good.”

“You got it from your
father.”

“What did I get from you?”

“I fed you, I clothed you, I
kept you safe.”

“Did you ever love me?”

“You ask too much.”

Nadja took her mother’s face
in her hands and kissed the frozen forehead. Her chapped lips adhered to the
ice. When she pulled away she lost some skin. Nadja tasted warm blood and wiped
it from her lips with the back of her hand.

“Bye, Mama,” she said. “I
forgive you everything.”

Water flowed from her
mother’s eyes. The shade opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated too long.
Tears fell and froze, locking her visage in an icy rigor mortis, until her face
became once more a mask of sorrows.

Giovanni paused and surveyed
the frozen heads of the traitors.
He’s here.

“Mordred!” Giovanni called
out. “Where are you, Mordred?”

“Over here,
”
said a voice not far off.

Giovanni went to him. “Where
is the Grail?”

“You carry the Holy Lance,”
Mordred said to Marco, “yet you are not of the Round Table.”

“I am a Knight Templar.”

“Do you not remember me,
Marco da Roma?”

“We have not met.”

“Oh, but we have. It was not
the Lance you carried then.” Mordred’s laughter crackled over the ice. “You
look confused. Did he take your memory, as well? That was a nasty trick. I will
tell you everything, if you give me the Lance.”

“I give you nothing.”

“Then I give you this, Marco
da Roma. A riddle: you are the oldest man alive; why are you not dead?”

“He’s a liar,” said
Giovanni. “Don’t listen to him.”

“All men are liars,” said
Mordred.

“You were Arthur’s son.”

“His nephew.”

“You were both, and you
betrayed him.”

“My king, my father, my
uncle—three betrayals for the price of one—yet I never betrayed the
Grail. It should have been mine. Arthur was a foolish old man. By all the laws
of Heaven and Earth, the relic should have passed to me.”

“You killed Arthur for the
Grail?” Nadja asked.

“I did what I was born to
do.”

“Slay your father?” asked
Giovanni.

“I would have killed a
hundred fathers and a thousand uncles and a million kings to attain my destiny.”

Giovanni looked over the
ice. “This is your destiny.”

“Yes.” Mordred laughed. “I
belong with the Grail.”

“Is it here?” the knight
demanded.

“Close,” Mordred whispered.

“Where?”

“Very close.”

“Tell us.”

“Can’t you feel it?”

“No.”

“Because you are lost,
Marco. All of you, lost. But I can feel it. Oh, yes. I feel it even now.”
Mordred grinned. Shards of ice calved from his face and fell tinkling on the
wind-swept ice that was his tomb. “It feels like victory.”

Leaving him, they walked
toward the rhythmic wind and came to a place where shades were buried to their
chins, unable to turn their heads. Marco saw one shade gnawing on the head of
another, feeding on skull and brains.

Behind the knight, a voice
cried out, “Go away!”

Marco turned. “Who are you?”

“You know me.”

“I’ve never seen you
before.”

“Liar! You were here.”

“You’re mistaken,” said
Marco. “I’ve never been here.”

“Liar! Liar!”

Nadja asked him, “What’s
wrong?”

“The Lance! The Lance! First
the Grail and now the Lance.”

“What do you know of it?”
Giovanni said.

“The Bleeding Lance. The
Dolorous Stroke. That was me. That was my curse.”

“Who are you?”

“I wounded the Fisher King,
and made a wasteland of my country.”

“Sir Balin?” Giovanni
guessed.

“A cursed name for a cursed
soul. I am that Balin of wretched memory. I beheaded the Lady of the Lake. I
wounded Pellam, the Fisher King. I killed my own brother. I am a worm in the
bowels of the Earth, but I was once Arthur’s greatest knight, before there ever
was a Round Table. A fool I was. I used the Holy Lance for evil. As you are
doing now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t give the Lance to
him.”

“Him?” asked Nadja,
confused.

“You mean to Lucifer?” asked
Giovanni.

“Whatever you do, don’t give
him the Lance!”

“We won’t,” said Marco.

“Liar!”

“Why do you keep saying
that?” asked Nadja.

“That’s why you’re here. To
finish the job I started. To turn the world into a wasteland.”

“We’re here to save the
world,” said Nadja.

“Then you’re a greater fool
than I ever was.”

“We came to fight the
Devil,” said Marco. “To recover the Grail.”

“Then why did the Devil let
you in?”

“We came of our own accord.”

Balin laughed. “You’re here
because the Devil wants you here.”

“We’re here,” said Marco,
“because the Devil cannot stop us.”

“Why would he want to?
You’re bringing it to him. You’ll give him the Lance like you gave him the
Grail.”

“We’re looking for the
Grail,” said Marco.

“It’s right where you left
it.”

Giovanni said, “We never had
it.”

“Liar! He had it. He gave it
away.”

“Who?”

“Marco da Roma.”

“You know him?” asked Nadja.

“He is not what he appears.”

“You speak in riddles,” said
Giovanni.

“Ask him. Ask him why he led
you here. Ask him why he brings a relic into Hell. Ask him, if you dare, but be
wary of his answer. Your friend is vassal to the Prince of Lies.”

“The man’s talking
nonsense.” Marco shook his head. “Let’s keep moving.”

He walked on. The others
followed.

Giovanni grabbed the
knight’s arm. “Explain yourself.”

“I cannot.”

“Did you bring the Grail
into Hell?”

“No.”

“Did you sell it to the
Devil?”

“Why would I do that?”

“For youth. For immortality.
We found you among the dead, but you were not dead. How many times have you
fallen to a blow that would have killed another man? William is dead and you
are not. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Giovanni turned to Nadja.
“We can’t trust him.”

“William trusted him,” she
answered.

“And now he’s dead.”

Nadja took Giovanni’s hand,
and Marco’s. “He said we have each other. He said that was hope enough. If we
abandon each other, we abandon all hope. Isn’t that what the Devil wants?”

Giovanni glared at Marco.
“Why should we trust you?”

The knight hesitated, then
shook his head. “I scarcely trust myself. Nadja, the decision is yours. If you
ask me to leave, I will.”

“And give us the Lance,”
Giovanni insisted.

“Yes.” Marco went down on
one knee and took Nadja’s hands in his. “I have defended you, and I would do so
again. I have wielded the Holy Lance, anointed by the blood of Christ. Could
the Devil do as much? Could the Devil even touch it? You brought me here,
Nadja. I did not bring you. I did not ask for this. I never wanted it. I have
lost myself, that much is true. I don’t know what secrets lie buried in my
past. These things are hidden even from me. If I knew them, Nadja, I would tell
you. I am a good man, I swear to you I am good, but I will not claim there is
no evil in my heart. Every human heart is touched with evil. But whatever my
sins, Nadja, whatever my faults, I swear to you now that I will prove myself. I
will find redemption. This is my pilgrimage, too, my penance, though I do not know
for what sins I suffer. You must believe me. I live for your belief in me. I
owe you more than my life, more than my heart, more than my soul. I would
gladly lay down my life for yours.” The knight bowed his head. Tears froze in
beads of ice and shattered where they fell. “You are my lady, and I would
protect you from the Devil himself.”

Nadja put a hand to Marco’s
chin. She raised his face to hers and kissed his forehead. When their eyes met
again, she said, “It may come to that.”

As Marco walked into the devilish wind,
he and his companions passed over sinners sunk deeper in the ice, with half
their faces buried. Tears froze in their eye sockets. Farther on, the shades
were completely encased, some upside-down, others contorted into shapes that in
life would have snapped bones and severed spines. One sinner was rolled into a
tight ball, with his head thrown back. Another bent over backwards, with one
leg at his chest, another along his spine, so that both feet met overhead.
Torsos were twisted, legs splayed, feet locked behind the ears. Thousands of
human faces stared up through the glassy floor. Their eyes tracked Marco’s
movement underfoot.

Through the mist a red light
beaconed, bathing the ice incarnadine. Walking on, Marco saw the red light
divide into two glowing orbs that grew larger as he approached. They became a
pair of shimmering eyes, chatoyant as the eyes of a cat. They looked down at
him from an immense height. A rumbling pulse from the world’s occulted heart
resolved itself into a voice.

“I am the Prince of
Darkness. Welcome.”

Marco said, “We came for
the—”

“I know why you came,” said
Lucifer, in a voice laced with the screams of all mankind.

CHAPTER 32

The pilgrims crossed over
treacherous ice to meet the insidious fiend. Into the wind, braving flurries of
sleet, they trekked, aiming not for the red eyes in the murky air above, but
for the angelic glow at the level of the ice, a light that matched the splendor
of the lancelight. Giovanni knew they were nearing the object of their quest.

The Holy Grail.

Sleet pelted his eyes
whenever he glanced up, but as the pilgrims advanced, sleet dwindled, fog
dispersed, and Giovanni beheld at last the glorious relic, a glowing chalice
trapped in ice. Directly behind it loomed the great and fallen angel, the beast
at the heart of the world.

Lucifer.

He was an enormous creature,
larger by far than the giants who guarded Cocytus. Sunk chest-deep in the lake
of ice, his body was forested with dark bristles. His beauty had turned to
wretchedness, his grace to grief. His six angel wings now resembled the wings
of a bat. His head wore three faces, one watching the pilgrims, the others
looking in profile to the left and right. The lateral mouths each chewed on a
damned soul. The central mouth had dropped its bloody morsel and was free to
speak. A third human soul lay mangled and writhing on the ice.

“Is the Devil trapped?”
Nadja asked.

“Trapped by his own tears,”
Giovanni said. “
Lachryma dioboli.
He beats his wings to escape, but the wind freezes the tears and binds him to
the abyss.”

“What is he chewing?”

“Judas, Cassius, and Brutus.
That would be Judas on the ice.”

“Marco da Roma,” Lucifer
said, “I accept your gift.”

“I bring you no gift,” Marco
shouted into the wind.

The Devil’s wings stopped
beating. Silence filled the void. The pilgrims walked without resistance toward
the Grail.

“That is far enough,”
Lucifer said. “The Holy Lance. Leave it with me, and you may leave here alive.”