Part 7 (1/2)
She laughed a trifle scornfully. ”No one can live so long! Most of the world is hot, to me, and most everywhere but among the Saami are men kept on chains! No, Damiano. You must tell me how to find Satan's Hall, where someone of greater information may be made to talk.”
”That would not be the act of a friend,” he said, staring away from her down the wooded hill.
There was a cras.h.i.+ng among the trees below, like a deer leaping among the hazel, but Saara was too roused to attend to noises. She pointed a chiding finger at the ghost as she cried, ”Was it the act of a friend to help a man die in his own way, when there was another who might have saved his life? Raphael said it was the act of a friend. Do you agree?”
Damiano's eyes were pulled to hers, and breathless spirit though he was, he sighed. ”Will you throw me by my own words, Saara? Yes, that was the act of a friend.
”And it is your decision how you will live or die, and your vows are your own to keep. But the pure truth is that I no longer know the way to the Chamber of Four Windows, if I ever did.
”For Damiano is dead, you know.” The shadows of his hand touched his own breast. ”This is only memory, lent shape by love.” As he spoke, his face was growing paler and less defined with the setting of the moon, but the look he gave Saara was an obvious mixture of sweetness and amus.e.m.e.nt. He raised his hand and pointed beyond her.
”But THERE is one I think might know the way to Satan's palace,” Damiano said.
Saara spun in place as the hulking black shadow barged among the birch trees. Above it was a thinner shadow that was cursing continually in a very familiar voice.
”Gaspare!” the witch cried out in recognition.
The horse s.h.i.+ed at the sound and Gaspare came nearly off, hanging over the gelding's back by onecrooked knee and a handful of black mane. He cursed fluently, sliding down to his feet.
The gangling youth strode closer, staggering and flailing his arms as though blind. He encountered a few birch boles before coming close enough to spy Saara, sitting solid as a point of stone at the crest of the hill.
”Lady Saara!” he began. ”I have had the Devil's own trouble finding you. And it's dark here as the inside of a witch's...”
Gaspare had a pack on his back and the neck of the lute stuck out of it sideways like an insect's leg.
His lank hair hung around his shoulders. Somewhere he had found another s.h.i.+rt.
Saara watched his approach in wonder and consternation. It had been scarcely a week since she had flapped home-a very weary dove-and in that time she had forgotten about the clownish Gaspare. She was not too happy to have him interrupting her ghostly tryst, painful though the meeting had to be. ”As the inside of a witch's what, Gaspare?”
The only answer was a mumble and a clearing of the throat, as the youth realized what he had said.
Saara turned her attention back to the waiting spirit, who glimmered like ice in the last rays of the moon.
Gaspare, too, noticed Damiano. The young man hissed, drawing himself back, and he made the peculiar Italian magical sign of protection which has been used from time immemorial by men who don't understand the least about magic.
”Again!” he cried in wrath made slightly hysterical by the touch of fear. He scooped a birch branch, complete with withering leaves, from the soil. ”Again you try your tricks, Satan! Villainous wibbert, orwyvart... wyrven...” Giving up on the ungainly word heard only once, he lashed the branch at the apparition, which sat and watched him, wings pulsing slightly.
”Worm!” bellowed Gaspare, slas.h.i.+ng his weapon left and right through the translucent form. The colors of Damiano trickled over the thras.h.i.+ng branches like dappled sunlight, while he ghost himself sat placidly waiting.
As soon as Gaspare stopped, panting, to survey his destruction, Damiano spoke again. ”h.e.l.lo, old friend, and G.o.d keep you.”
Gaspare, leaning on his branch, stared uncertainly. After a few moments, he whined.
”I see you have that pretty lute on your back,” continued the spirit, grinning at Gaspare's discomfiture.
”I remember it somewhat, though I owned it less than a week. I have heard you play with great enjoyment, Gaspare.”
”You? Have heard me play? With...” The redhead struggled with the idea that the Devil might like his music. It was almost as difficult for him to believe the alternate explanation. At last he let his leafy weapon fall. ”Could it be you are really Delstrego?”
”Damiano Delstrego. Or I was. And I have no one anymore to call me 'sheep-face,' Gaspare. What a shame.”
Gaspare blinked away a sudden brightness in his eyes. He turned to Saara, to find that the witch, like the ghost, was grinning. ”Lady Saara,” he said decisively, ”I think you have made a mistake. I don't think this is Satan at all. I think this is really Damiano.”
”Of course it is Damiano,” stated Saara.
Gaspare sank to his knees. He yanked the pack from his back and began to pull it apart, until the pearl inlay of the lute belly shone under the moon like the spirit's wings.
”Play for me,” he demanded, thrusting the beautiful instrument at the ghost. ”Play for me this minute, before you turn to moonlight or I wake up and it will be too late. For my worst fear, old partner, is that I will forget what you sounded like, who were-who are-the finest musician in Damiano shook his head, and the gray wings gathered closer. ”There is no time left for that, Gaspare.
I AM moonlight; I came with the moon and will fade with it. Besides- the lute and the playing of it is yours. But I will tell you one very important thing-old partner...”
Gaspare leaned close to the dimly s.h.i.+ning spirit, trying to quiet his ragged breath. Damiano's serious face grew clear, and more intent, even as the rest of him darkened.”Gaspare. In music, as in everything else, 'best' is an empty word. Don't strive to be best, or you will wake up one day and know yourself no good at all.”
Saaras voice rapped out. ”Enough! The moon is almost gone! What did you mean, Darni? That he might know the way to Satan's Hall?”
The ghost's smile returned again, ruefully. A ghostly hand laid itself very lightly on Gaspares bosom.
”There.” The words came faintly. ”He knows it there, for pride calls to pride.” Gaspare gasped and shrank away, but the spirit consoled him.
”I am not saying you are wicked, Gaspare, nor that you belong to the Devil's own. Don't be a fool like I was, to let him make you believe that! But you... like me... may have an understanding of Satan.
Raphael wonders if that is what men are for, did you know? To understand the misery of wickedness, as angels cannot. To feel pity for it.”
The hand, almost invisible now, rose to touch Gaspares still unbristly chin. ”I'll help you as I can, old friend. I haven't forgotten that you were a very good manager to me.”
Gaspare swallowed hard. He wanted to believe he felt the touch of that hand. ”And I, sheep-...
Damiano. I pray for your peace each night-when I think to pray, of course.”
”I know,” whispered Damiano, and then Gaspare's eyes could no longer see anything.
Saara rose to her feet, her trembling hand raised before her. ”Farewell, love,” she called to the air.
”Love,” came back the reply, or else an echo.
The moon was gone.
”What did he mean?” demanded Gaspare, as the whites of his eyes glinted at Saara.
The Lapp woman subjected Gaspare to an uncomfortable scrutiny. ”He meant,” she said at last, ”that you can tell me how to find and enter Satan's stronghold.”
”He meant that?” Both Gaspare's hands clapped to the sides of his head. ”I know, Satan's stronghold?” His stiff fingers stood up like antlers. ”If he knows I know that, then he knows a lot more about me than I do about myself!”
Saara yawned, glancing up at the starlit sky. ”That is the first wise thing I have ever heard from your mouth, Gaspare.” She walked over to him, somewhat stiff from her hours on the chill earth. She laid her hand on his rather pointed red head and rumpled his hair. ”Come now: It's time to sleep. In the morning we can worry at the spirit-puzzles.”
4.