The Stone Light (22 page)

The group climbed into the shell among algae and the encrusted remains of earlier sea dwellers, touching them as little as possible.

Eft was the last to climb into the floating bowl of horn and sit down on the bottom with them. Serafin felt the warty surface of the shell through the thin material of his trousers, but he didn’t care. He felt gutted, his insides frozen to ice.

All at once, heads rose from the water around their vessel, only just up to the eyes—large, beautiful eyes. Then the mermaids showed the rest of their faces. In the darkness their teeth shone like slivers of moon floating on the water.

There were eight, enough to drag the heavy sea turtle shell through the labyrinth of canals out into the open water. Aristide was talking to himself and unable to take his eyes off the mermaid who was next to him in the water, although in the dark, hardly more was visible than a wide fan of hair, which now moved slowly forward. The shell began to move along with the mermaids, an unusual but effective raft, on which the survivors now glided through the darkness. A slight odor of dead fish and algae hung in the air.

Serafin’s eyes sought Eft. The mermaid had turned away and was supporting herself with her lower arms on the edge of the shell. Expressionless, she stared into the dark water. It was clear how very much she longed to be
gliding through the cold stream with her sisters with a scaled tail instead of legs.

The mermaids pulled and pushed them around a multitude of turns and bends, through low tunnels and open waterways that ran between façades without windows, through hidden gardens and, once or twice, even through waterways in the interiors of abandoned buildings. Serafin soon lost his bearings. Not that he wasted too much thought on that.

He could think only of Lalapeya, of what she’d done to them. He didn’t understand her reasons. Why did she just call a rebellion into life in order to rub it out so thoughtlessly?

Wait still,
Eft had said,
before you pass judgment on her.

He would have liked to ask her what she meant by that, but this wasn’t the time. None of them was in the mood to talk. Perhaps it would have been better, maybe it would have freed them from a part of the burden and grief. But no one cared about that at the moment. They all brooded silently to themselves, with the exception of Aristide, who kept on murmuring soft, disconnected sentences and staring, wide-eyed, into emptiness.

It was one thing to hear about mummy soldiers and sphinxes and what a sickle sword could do to a human being—but it was something entirely different to see a friend die, in the certainty that he gave his life for yours.

Serafin wasn’t sure whether they would defend
themselves if someone were to attack them now. It wasn’t the way it was in stories, where heroes took on another fight as they were on the run and with a breezy remark on their lips.

No, it wasn’t like that at all.

They’d given everything they had, and they’d lost. Boro was dead. It would be a long time before the survivors could get over that. Even Eft, brave, hard, grim Eft, was oozing grief from all her pores like sweat.

From some of the rooflines, Serafin realized that they were crossing the Cannaregio district toward the north. If the mermaids intended to take them out of Venice, this was the best way—somewhere to the north lay the mainland. But he had no illusions about that: The Egyptians would spot them on the open water. Even if the siege ring no longer existed—after all, the city was taken—there must be enough patrols out to discover them within the shortest possible time.

But he didn’t voice his objections. He was too exhausted and more than grateful to entrust his life to others; perhaps they’d go about it more responsibly than he had himself.

Soon he could make out a tunnel opening that led out to the open sea. A velvety night sky still hung over the lagoon, but the stars gave enough light to sprinkle the water’s surface with points of light and to provide an overpowering feeling of breadth. A fresh night wind blew
across the water toward them and penetrated the tunnel. It felt easier to breathe now.

The sea turtle shell pushed unhurriedly out of the tunnel opening. Before them, several hundred yards away, San Michele, Venice’s cemetery island, rose from the dark wilderness of water. The ochre-colored wall that enclosed the angular island seemed gray and dirty in the icy light of the stars, as if it had been erected from the bones of those who lay buried on the island. The dead had been buried here since time immemorial, thousands and more thousands of names engraved on gravestones and urns.

In the darkness over the island, a collector hovered silently.

Dario let out a hoarse curse. He was the only one who made a sound. Even Aristide stopped talking to himself.

The collector cut a dark triangle in the diadem of the star picture. Colossal and threatening, the mighty pyramid hung a few dozen yards over the island. By day there would certainly have been sunbarks swarming around it, but now darkness ruled, and without light, the barks couldn’t take off.

The mermaids pushed the sea turtle shell eastward, noticeably faster than in the maze of tunnels and canals. The headwind drove into the faces of the five passengers. Eft pulled the pins out of her long hair and shook it out. It fluttered wildly around her like a black flag at her back, a pirate queen on the search for booty.

But although they all had to hold on tight, they couldn’t take their eyes off the collector over the cemetery island. They guessed what it was going to do there.

“Can they really do that?” murmured Tiziano, shocked.

“Yes,” said Dario dazedly. “They certainly can do that.”

Aristide began to mutter softly again, incoherent stuff that robbed Serafin of his last shred of nerve. But he was too tired to lash out at the boy. Not even the sight of the collector could pull him out of his lethargy. They had just been unable to save the living; what did the dead matter to him?

“My parents are buried over there,” said Dario tonelessly.

“So are mine,” whispered Tiziano.

Aristide groaned; perhaps it was words, too.

Eft sent Serafin a look, but he ignored her. To not think. To not look back. I don’t want to know all that.

On the underside of the collector a glowing network of lines and hooks appeared, flamed suddenly in the darkness, and solidified, a storm of lightning bolts that all appeared at the same time and did not die out.

“It’s starting,” Tiziano said.

The first light-hook detached itself from the black and drove down soundlessly, disappearing behind the wall of the cemetery island. None of the five had ever witnessed a
collector at work, but they knew the stories. They knew what would happen.

More and more glowing lines were sent down from the underside of the collector, creating a jagged, multi-angled trellis between the flying pyramid and the island of San Michele.

Serafin could no longer bear the horror on the faces of his companions. He turned away. His own father had disappeared before he was born, and his mother had been killed in an accident when he was twelve; her body had never been found. But he felt his friends’ sorrow and horror, and it hurt him almost as much as if he’d had relatives or friends buried on San Michele himself.

His eyes wandered over to the shores of Venice. The coastline of the Cannaregio district moved ever more quickly past them, while the eight mermaids moved the sea turtle shell faster and faster over the dark waves. Now and again one of them appeared over the edge of the shell, but most of the time they stayed underwater, invisible in the dark.

Serafin saw mummy soldiers on the shore walls and patrolling along the Fondamenta, but they paid no attention to the collector in the sky over the cemetery island or to the sea turtle shell.

And there was something else.

The sky over the roofs lit up, a narrow edging of light, like Saint Elmo’s fire over the roofs and gables. It was too
early for sunrise, and furthermore, it wasn’t the right part of the sky: In the east the sky was still deep black.

Fire, thought Serafin. The fire in the mirror workshop had probably set the entire district on fire. He wouldn’t allow the idea close enough to him to really be frightened, but nevertheless, he looked over at Eft to see if she’d also noticed the strange glow.

Over her shoulder he saw that the light-net of the collector had enclosed the entire island. Clouds of dust and earth rose behind the walls.

Eft was also no longer looking toward San Michele. She was looking back at the city, and her eyes gleamed, as if someone had lit candles in their cavities. Only a mirror image. The reflection of a new, glittering brightness.

Serafin whirled around. The Saint Elmo’s fire over Cannaregio’s rooftops had spread to a glowing inferno.

And yet—there were no flames! No conflagration! Serafin had never seen anything so beautiful, as if the angels themselves were sinking into the lagoon.

Then he discovered something else.

The mummy soldiers on the shore were no longer patrolling: Some lay motionless on the ground, others drifted in the water. Someone had extinguished them in a moment, quickly, like a deadly wind gust that had strafed the shore.

Only a single figure now stood on the Fondamenta on the bank, not far from the opening of a canal: the outline
of a powerful lion with the upper body of a young woman. She had both arms raised to the sky and her head laid back. Her long hair floated on the wind like a billow of smoke.

“It is she,” said Eft. No one except Serafin heard her. The other boys still stared spellbound at the collector and the island.

Serafin felt all the hate and rage in him force their way out. He saw Boro before him as he’d stood in the middle of the sea of flames just before the sphinx reached him. And now Lalapeya, who’d caused all this, was standing there and working some magic to hold up the fugitives.

“Serafin!” cried Eft. But it was too late.

He’d shoved his saber into his belt, and before anyone could stop him, he made a headlong dive into the water. It closed over him, sealing his eyes and ears with oppressive silence and darkness. He wasted no more than a quick thought on the mermaids who floated all around him in the water; also gave no thought to the collector or San Michele or any of his friends.

He thought only of Lalapeya.

He surfaced, gulped some air, and swam away as fast as he could—and that was amazingly fast, considering his exhaustion, which now fell away from him like a bundle of rags. Blurrily, he saw the shore come closer, only a few yards more. He had the feeling he wasn’t alone, that there were bodies to the right and left of him, even under him.
But if the mermaids really were following him, they made no attempt to stop him.

His hand struck cold stone, slippery with algae and sewage. The walled bank was almost seven feet high; he would never in his life be able to climb up there without help. Still filled with anger, he looked around him, saw the body of a mummy soldier floating nearby in the water, and then, a little farther to the left, he spotted a boat landing. He swam over with a few strokes and climbed into one of the tethered rowboats. A powerful disturbance arose in the water behind him as one of the mermaids under the surface made a U-turn and returned to the turtle shell.

Once in the boat, Serafin looked around. He’d been driven off course and was now a good two hundred yards away from Lalapeya. The sphinx had entwined both hands over her head, and the light was gathering there, creeping down from the roofs along the façades like something living, a glittering, sparking carpet of brightness, flickering like a fog illuminated from the inside out. A beaming aureole surrounded Lalapeya’s hands, spread along her arms to her body, and finally enveloped her entirely.

Serafin didn’t wait to find out where all this was leading. He couldn’t permit the sphinx to do something to the others with the help of her magic. She’d already caused too much suffering. And this was probably the last opportunity he’d have to pay her back.

He pulled out his saber, sprang from the boat to the pier, and ran to the bank. His steps sounded hollow on the wood, but Lalapeya didn’t notice him. It was as though she was in a trance, entirely concentrated on the annihilating blow. In the supernatural light she looked like a vision of a Madonna with the lower body of a monster, a blasphemous caricature from the pen of a medieval miniature painter, overwhelmingly beautiful and horrible at the same time.

Only once, very briefly, did Serafin look across the water to the sea turtle shell. Eft had gotten up and was standing erect in the shell. She called something over to the bank, perhaps trying to draw Lalapeya’s attention to her. But the sphinx didn’t react.

The other boys had noticed what was happening, and their eyes swung back and forth between the nightmare spectacle on the cemetery island and the occurrence on the shore. Dario waved at Serafin with his saber, perhaps cheering him on, perhaps something else?

Still thirty yards to the sphinx. Now twenty.

The glow intensified.

Serafin had almost reached her when Lalapeya abruptly turned her head and looked at him. Looked at him out of her dark brown, exceedingly beautiful eyes.

Serafin did not slow. He merely let the saber drop—against his will?—then pushed off from the ground with outstretched arms and sprang at Lalapeya.

Her girl’s face contorted. She snapped her eyes wide open. Even in her pupils there flickered a supernatural glow.

Serafin broke through the wreath of brightness, was able to grab her upper body, and swept her off her lion legs. In a heap of arms and legs and predator’s claws they crashed to the ground, rolled over and over, suddenly plunged into emptiness, and splashed into the water. A knife-sharp claw grazed Serafin’s cheek, another tore his clothing and perhaps the skin under it, yes, he was bleeding, there was blood in the water. Then he saw Lalapeya’s face, heard as she let out a piercing scream, now only a young woman with wet, stringy hair, no supernatural appearance anymore, and the light had vanished too.

He saw her thrashing with her arms and fought against the urge to simply press her under the water until it was all over, to pay her back for everything: her betrayal, the death of Boro, the way she’d used him.