Part 2 (1/2)
Saara had never been to a school in her life and her knowledge of grammar was embryonic. ”What on earth are you talking about, you dirty thing? n.o.body would embrace you!”
Then the whimsical light went out of his eyes. ”Scrawny pullet,” he barked, and he ground his teeth at her. ”I will derive a great deal of pleasure out of pulling you apart.”
Saara looked directly at him, and then through him, and finally turned her back on him and sat staring at the win-dowless wall of the model to which she was tied.
Lucifer's high color rose higher, from carnelian to the hue of fresh-butchered meat. Hissing, he plucked up the red thread and dangled the woman by her ankle. Her brown braids swung below her head, and her dress crawled up to her armpits. Sn.i.g.g.e.ring, he pulled it off, leaving her to dangle naked.
Bestowing this additional humiliation upon Saara did a lot toward restoring the Devil's temper.
Her body was lithe, and blushed like the skin of a peach.
”You know, little insignificant peeper, that you weren't even the sparrow I was out to snare? Not even THAT important.”
Saara climbed up her own leg and then up the length of red string until she hung upright by her two hands. She didn't seem to care or notice that she was naked.
”I know,” she replied. ”It was pretty obvious you were after Gaspare. Well, you won't be able to use that trick on him again, dressing up like Damiano. Gaspare must have seen an eyeful.”
The red cord trembled with Lucifer's annoyance. ”Have you no sense but to hang there and throw offense at me, savage? Don't you know how I'm going to make you suffer?”
”I know how you made Damiano suffer,” was her undisturbed retort. ”Yet it didn't get you anywhere, did it?”
The tiny woman's body was spinning around with the natural movement of the twine, and the chamber of four windows pa.s.sed under her review. She noted it as carefully as she could, especially the vista outside the window by which she had entered.
Obviously they were not really in the Alpine mountains. They were probably in no definite place at all; Saara had enough experience in the realms of magic to know that its geography was unpredictable.
When her spinning brought her around to Kadjebeen, squatting in his dim corner, she actually laughed.
”What an unfortunate creature!” she cried aloud. ”I wonder how it can manage, looking like that!”
The raspberry-shaped and raspberry-colored demon did not particularly like being laughed at, but he found some comfort in the knowledge that this stranger had immediate sympathy with his biggest problem in life. His Magnifi cence (who had had a clear hand in the molding of Kadje-been) had never deigned to express any interest in his servants consequent plight.
Still Saara spun, coming back around to face the Devils perfect features and exposed fangs.
”So you noticed little Kadjebeen, did you?” Lucifer snickered, enjoying his captives dizzying movement. ”How would you like to be turned into another like him?”
But Saara had spent too much time as a bird to be made motion sick. ”You can't,” she replied casually. ”I am not afraid of hunger, so you have no power over my belly or mouth, and I am not afraid of YOU, so you cannot make me shrink like that against the ground. And as for his eyes- well, they mustbug out from fear, as well, for he can have no great desire to be able to look back at that face of his!”
”Enough elementary lessons in transmigration,” Lucifer growled. He blew Saara into a faster spin.
”There is, after all, a reason I have brought you here,”
”YOU brought ME?” The spin added a peculiar tremolo to Saara's words. ”A moment ago you said I came in spite of you.”
”Some of each,” replied the Devil equably, and losing interest, he dropped the whirling woman to the tabletop. ”It is of no account by which way you came. Nor does it really matter that you're not Gaspare of San Gabriele. What matters is that you are a good enough bait to draw my brother Raphael to me.”
Saara had landed on her feet, still holding the length of red twine in her hands. She stared blankly at the huge carmine face above her, ”Raphael? You mean the Chief of Eagles? You mean the music teacher?”
Lucifer's amus.e.m.e.nt spread all over his face. ”We certainly have the same party in mind, little witch.
Raphael the many-feathered warbler, who happens to be my disgusting lesser brother.”
The naked woman rolled a coil of twine and sat herself down upon it. She examined Lucifer appraisingly. ”They say the eagle is kin to the bald-headed vulture-who also has a very red face, like yours.”
In an instants ungovernable fury Lucifer spat at Saara: spat an incendiary spittle which exploded around her like Greek fire. She barely had time to roll herself into a ball before the flash was around her.
To the stuffiness of the air was added the stench of burnt hair.
Saara uncoiled, slightly pinker than she had been and missing most of her braids. Her heart was pounding and she could feel the blood rus.h.i.+ng into her face and even through her ears.
But none of this was fear. Instead she felt a mad exhalta-tion, as it seemed her long life had at last come to some point.
”You picked a bad bait to use, if you want to attract the Chief of Eagles,” she said casually, examining a slightly charred fingernail. ”We haven't gotten along very well.”
”I wonder who you HAVE gotten along with, you tusked sow!” growled the Devil, but he was unable to hide the fact that this information displeased him. He drummed enormous fingers on the tabletop (his rhythm was off).
”That hardly matters,” he said at last. ”Raphael is the sort who would not let a small thing like justly despising you stand in the way of self-sacrifice. He is quite perverse that way, my brother. In fact, a mortal he dislikes may be the better for my purpose.” Then Lucifer yawned.
”Likely ANY mortal would have done.”
Boredom recalled Lucifer to his own intention. ”Why do I sit here communing with this bit of insignificant spleen?” he murmured. ”I need only raise my voice now, and...”
Suddenly the witch on the table seemed infected by madness. She rose from her stringy chair and began to jump up and down, her round b.r.e.a.s.t.s jouncing in opposition to her movement. ”He'll blast you, windbag! The Eagle will tear you limb from limb. He'll turn you into a bright-red leather handbag. He'll...”
and then Saara stopped bouncing long enough to perform an extremely complex and obscene gesture which she had learned in the Italics. When she felt she once more had Lucifer's attention, she began to curse him in earnest.
Forbearance was not the Devil's strongest attribute. Yet his only visible reaction to this torrent of abuse was a mo mentary tightening of the jaw. ”If you didn't believe I could damage this spirit you claim to hate” (Saara actually had claimed no such thing), ”you would not be so eager now to have me kill you.
”You will just have to be patient,” he adjured the tiny woman, and turned from the table.
Lucifer looked out each of his windows in turn, wasting not a glance on Kadjebeen, who was still squatting obediently in his corner, feeling his mouth with his spidery fingers and staring ruefully at his stumpy short legs.
In the Prince of Earth a fierce emotion was rising: a satisfaction which thought itself joy but bore moreresemblance to pride. Like a player of some intricate, slow-moving board game, he had plotted out a hundred future moves in this bitter duel with Raphael (more bitter because he suspected that Raphael was not even aware of it as a duel) and had decided that he could not lose.
Meanwhile the Lappish curses continued from the little witch tied to the model on the table. Only Kadjebeen listened.
”Raphael,” called Lucifer composedly, in a voice no louder than that he had used to call his servant.
”Raphael, my dear brother, why don't you drop by and see me?”
There was a minute's silence. Lucifer knew this didn't indicate that Raphael hadn't heard him, or that the roads were bad. Sharpening his very flexible voice, the Devil added,””! advise you very strongly to make the visit, brother. You will find you are not my only guest.”
Suddenly a wind swirled through the windows of the chamber, as though whatever barrier had kept the airs of the world from entering had been breached. It was a confused wind, as the mint dryness of the Alps met the breath of orchids, while sand and sandalwood clashed with pine. But it was very fresh. It made Saara lift her head and sniff, and little Kadjebeen, in his corner, began to burble with worry.
The air flickered with a light like sun filtered through a net of pearls: a soft radiance which rippled and danced. It was the gleam given off by the white wings of Raphael.
The face was the same as Lucifer's, though perhaps there was a greater virility in the high, sharp set of Lucifer's cheekbones. Lucifer's hair, too, was a richer color, to match the more-than-ruddyness of his skin.
But Lucifer's eyes were a pale and watchful blue, while those of Raphael were summer evening itself, with stars s.h.i.+ning through darkness.
He was dressed very simply, almost sketchily, in a white garment which Lucifer called (under his breath) ”the same old unders.h.i.+rt.” He was shorter and slighter than Lucifer. But the thing which distinguished Raphael from his brother was, of course, that frame of enormous, opalescent, galleon-sail wings: wings which seemed to be nothing more than the radiance of his nature taking on form.