Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I (3 page)

I could feel Ariel still hovering over my shoulder.

“Is there something else, Ariel?”

“Let me remember thee what thou hast promised, which is not yet performed,” came the soft answer.

“Oh? And that is?” Though, I knew, of course. We had this conversation nearly every time we spoke. Poor Ariel. He had been having this conversation with Father since his days as Father’s personal servant on the island, and he was still harping on the same note now that he had been promoted to running Father’s entire establishment. Only when Father retired, he asked Ariel to stay with me, as there were many Aerie Ones back on Prospero’s Island but few competent enough to oversee the workings of this vast and multifaceted house.

“My liberty.”

“Before the time is out? No, Ariel. Neither you, nor any member of your race, will be released from your service to our family until the thousand years of the millennium you swore to serve have gone by. It has been a little over five hundred and fifty years since you swore to Father in 1458, the year of my birth. Be glad that you are finally more than halfway through.”

“I pray you remember, I have done you worthy service; told you no lies, made no mistakings, served without grudge or grumbling. Your father, the great and dread magician Prospero, did promise if I accomplished these things to free me one full century early.”

“Even then, you still have three and a half centuries to go, Ariel. Do you forget from what torments my father freed you? Or, would you prefer to have remained within the cloven pine where the witch Sycorax had imprisoned you?”

“No,” Ariel replied sadly, “though still I dance to its tune.”

Mab snorted. I shot him a quelling glance.

“That will be all, Ariel!”

Ariel departed, but Mab still stood beside me, fidgeting with his fedora and frowning. I met his gaze evenly.

“And you are waiting for . . .”

“I’m on it, Ma’am,” he said quickly. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find something.”

THAT
evening, I lit a fire in the enormous hearth of the lesser hall. The night air had a crisp coolness to it, though not enough to warrant turning on the heat. The amount of oil it took to warm this drafty old mansion could keep a small town toasty for a year.

I sat cross-legged upon a priceless Persian rug before a coffee table that had once graced the Versailles of Louis XIV. To my left, the phoenix lamp shed red-gold sparks, illuminating the reflective objects upon the mantelpiece: a black marble bust of my farther; the sapphire eyes of a little wooden figurine of an elf—a gift from my brother Mephisto; and a shiny vase of Jerusalem lilies. Nearby, amidst silk-covered pillows, my familiar, Tybalt, Prince of Cats, lay purring.

The matter of Father’s letter troubled me so much that I had decided to take an evening off from company business—something I seldom did. While Peaseblossom had been at Prospero’s Island, searching for my father, she had recovered more of Father’s journals. Officially, I was reading one of these, looking for clues that might give me some hint as to Father’s whereabouts;
however, concern over Father’s disappearance kept disrupting my concentration. Finally, I closed the volume and let my thoughts wander over the past.

Shakespeare wrote a well-known account of my youth. His version tells how my father, Prospero, the Duke of Milan, was betrayed by his brother Antonio and sent into exile with only his books and my infant self for company. Stranded on an island, Father freed Ariel from the cloven pine in which the witch Sycorax had imprisoned him and received in return, a promise of servitude from Ariel and his kind.

With the help of Ariel, Father called up a tremendous tempest. The storm blew to our island a ship carrying, among others, my wicked uncle Antonio, his friend the King of Naples, and the king’s handsome son, Prince Ferdinand.

I was, by this time, a young maid of fifteen—innocent and dewy-eyed—who had grown up with only Father and Caliban, the vile and misshapen son of the witch Sycorax, as company. Through the machinations of Father and Ariel, as Shakespeare tells it, I fell instantly in love with the handsome prince, the true perfidiousness of my wicked Uncle Antonio was brought to light, and Father was reconciled with the king. As we prepared for our triumphant return to Milan, where we were to celebrate the marriage of myself and Prince Ferdinand, Father drowned his magical tomes and freed his spirit servants.

Only, Shakespeare did not get our story quite right. Father never drowned his books nor freed his airy servants. Nor did I marry Ferdinand, who was but a tool of Father’s stratagem to reclaim Milan. When I was five, Father consecrated me to Eurynome, the Lady of Spiral Wisdom and the Bearer of the Lightning Bolt. Handmaidens of Eurynome receive many privileges—among them immortality. Yet, every blessing has its price. Eurynome’s other name is Monocerus, Greek for “one horn,” and unicorns only come to virgins. I was not about to trade immortality for the likes of Ferdinand, Prince of Naples!

Father finally did retire, three years ago. He turned his back on the modern world and returned to our ancient island home. (Funny how the most solitary of prisons can become a longed-for haven.) Even then, however, he did not drown his books but gave them to us, his children. He split them among the eight of us, saving the most important volumes for me. After all, I had lived with him back in the days when books and airy spirits had been our sole companions—unless one counted Caliban, which I did not. Father also signed over to me this mansion and control of our company, Prospero, Inc.

What did I do with my share of his books? The same thing I did with all
arcane tomes. I scoured them from cover to cover, searching for any hint as to the nature of the Sibyl, the highest order of Eurynome’s servants.

During my first few decades in Her service, I rose rapidly, climbing from Initiate, to Novice, to Vestal Maiden, to Handmaiden in record time. Only the rank of Sibyl remained beyond my reach, and I yearned to be worthy of this final honor. Days turned into weeks, however, weeks into years, and years into centuries, yet Sibylhood continued to elude me.

After five hundred years of searching, I was beginning to get discouraged.

Alas, Father’s journals, my latest glimmer of hope, were also proving unenlightening. In their pages were copious notes on ancient fertility rites, drafts of a metaphysical treatise on death and rebirth, numerous renditions of Father’s latest attempts at poetry, and descriptions of some horticulture project, not a word of which shed light on the mystery I pursued.

When Father retired, I fancied him enjoying centuries of relaxing study. I had even harbored the secret hope that he might spend some of his copious free time helping me track down the
Book of the Sibyl
, an ancient volume in which the secrets of the Sibylline Order were recorded. After all, it had been Father who originally set me upon this path, so I had hoped he would be inclined to help further my progress.

I certainly had not expected him to vanish, leaving behind but a single cryptic note!

Leaning back against a large silk-covered pillow, I spoke to my familiar, purposefully making light of my growing concern. “If Father must release enemies to hunt down the family, he could certainly have picked a more convenient time to do it! I wonder what these Three Shadowed Ones are. Efretes, maybe? Or brollachan? I swear I’ve heard the name before. Do you recognize it?”

The black cat opened one golden eye and regarded me disdainfully. Raising his head, he glanced this way and that, as if to confirm no one else was present.

“Were you talking to me?”

“I was.”

“Did you not notice I was napping?”

“You always nap. If I waited for you to wake up, I could never talk to you . . . which would make you useless as a familiar.”

“I will be useless as a familiar if you disturb me while I am cavorting with the Dream Gods,” the cat replied.

“Were you really cavorting with the Dream Gods?” I asked, curious.

Tybalt did not answer.

“This is a very busy time of year for Prospero, Inc.,” I continued. “We have nine large contracts due to be completed before the New Year, not to mention the myriad of other matters to be seen to: The Johannesburg office is being remodeled and is all in disarray, the Zurich office is in the midst of three major purchases—a real estate firm, a confectionary chain, and a watch factory, and we have warehouses all over the world working overtime to fill requests from retailers who need more stock before the final Christmas rush. Worse, five of the contracts coming due are Priority Accounts, and you know how touchy those can be!”

“How inconsiderate of your father.” The cat yawned. “A more thoughtful man would have waited until after Christmas to disappear. Perhaps we should ask these Three Shadowed Ones to hold off until after the New Year before they begin attacking your family.”

“Ah, if only . . .” I sighed, smiling at my own expense.

“What puzzles me,” continued the cat, “is why your father asked you to warn the others. He must have known you were busy and that you don’t like your siblings anyway . . . all those latecomers, born after you and Prospero returned from exile.”

“It’s not their birth order I object to so much as what they’ve done recently. When they are loyal to Father, I like them just fine—most of them, anyway,” I objected. “Besides, I adore Theo.”

“For all the good that will do you,” Tybalt replied. “If there even is a Theophrastus anymore. How old would he be now? Sixty? Eighty?”

“Well over five hundred,” I replied, deliberately ignoring the cat’s point.

Unbidden, the faces of my six living half-brothers and one half-sister arose before me, few of them dear to me, but all of them familiar . . . family. I thought about Gregor, who had died in 1924. I had never cared much for Gregor, nor had I been close to him. Yet, I had genuinely grieved when he died. Father had been so distraught, he had gone into seclusion for three years.

“I don’t know, Tybalt,” I shook my head. “My brothers may have failed the company, and mankind for that matter, but they are still my brothers. Perhaps, Father asked me because he thought I was the only one of his children who would obey him.”

“You are certainly the only one who
always
obeys him.” Tybalt watched me, unblinking. “What are these Three Shadowed Ones after?”

I gazed into the fire, enjoying its warmth upon my face. The logs crackled. The flames leapt like dancing imps, casting flickering shadows against
the back wall of the great hearth. Tybalt waited patiently, fixing me with his unblinking stare.

Finally, I sighed. “Our staffs.”

“Oh, dear. That could be less than pleasant for you!” the cat exclaimed. “After all, what would the mighty Prosperos be without their staffs? Heaven forbid you should become perfectly ordinary humans.”

I shot the black feline a sideways glance. “Ah, how very droll you are.”

The cat fixed me with his golden eyes. “You do not fool me, Daughter of Prospero, with your affectation of icy disdain. I know you are terrified for your father’s safety. He may be the Dread Magician Prospero, but even dread magicians can go astray, especially if they meddle with that which is even more dreadful.”

With my comfortable mask of mild concern pierced, the fears besetting my heart poured out. “How could anything have happened to Father?” I cried. “I thought he had grown tired of magic. Why would he take it up again? If only he had let me know he was planning something dangerous, I could have stood by to help! He has always appreciated my help in the past!”

“Perhaps, this recent mishap was an accident—Dread Prospero was strolling in the garden and stumbled over a flower pot which contained some horror once bound up by your brother Gregor and his ring, inadvertently releasing it.” My familiar tilted his head to one side, his gaze acute. “Or maybe he wished to perform some act of magic of which he feared you would disapprove?”

“Me? Disapprove?” I cried, aghast. “Why would I disapprove of anything Father thought suitable?”

“Why indeed?” the cat echoed softly.

“At the very least, he might have told his servants where he was going!”

“Now, now, Handmaiden of Eurynome, fret not.” Tybalt leapt lightly onto my lap and rubbed his cheek against mine. “Would you like me to inquire among the denizens of the dreamlands and the spirits that wander afar?”

“Yes.” I quickly wiped away a stray tear before he could spot it and mock me. “That would be very nice.”

The cat turned about three times, kneaded my legs with his soft paws, before settling down, his black body vibrating with contentment. I stroked his sleek fur, touched that this prickly cat had felt my plight so great he was willing to put aside his eternal snideness to comfort me.

“Very well, then.” His voice was a gentle purr. “Shall we see what the Guardians of Dream have heard?”

I would have responded, but when I glanced down, I saw he had fallen asleep again, his tail twitching. Smiling, I left him to his dreams. Who knows? Maybe he was cavorting with the Dream Gods.

MAB
stood in the doorway of my office in the mansion, fidgeting with his hat. “It’s bad, Ma’am . . . you’re not going to like it.”

I glanced up from behind the desk, where I had been answering company e-mail while speaking on the phone to Foxglove from Accounts Receivable. I had spent the day juggling matters at Prospero, Inc., trying to insure that service to our Priority Accounts would continue uninterrupted, should the matter of Father’s message require that I leave town. In the three years since I had become the executive officer, I had not bothered to take a vacation, so no precedent had been set for how to handle matters in my absence. Thus, I was now conducting a sort of corporate triage, giving certain vice presidents my cellphone number, turning some projects over to subordinates, and putting others on hold until after the Christmas season.