Page 21 of The Devils

Every House an Island

The heart of Venice was a half-drowned place, every building its own island, every street its own canal, swarming with people and teeming with boats. Boats made into houses, boats made into shops, boats where young lovers lazed, boats where furious rows took place, a boat turned into a chapel, from the forecastle pulpit of which a red-faced nun screeched for repentance. There was water around the buildings and water inside them. People swam through their front doors. People fished from their balconies. It smelled like beaches and bad drains, gulls endlessly bickering overhead, dashing everything with the ceaseless hail of their droppings.

‘A perfect opportunity for a lesson,’ said Balthazar.

Alex sagged back in the prow and groaned. ‘Thought I was learning the history of Troy, not Venice.’

The magician rolled his eyes, something he did more or less whenever she spoke. ‘All things are connected, child. Troy and Venice, and all the states and cities of the Mediterranean, for that matter, are branches grown from one root, which is …?’

‘The Empire of Carthage,’ she grunted.

‘Why else would the varied peoples of southern Europe and northern Afrique speak one tongue, derived from ancient Punic?’

‘Because the Carthaginians burned everyone who wouldn’t,’ murmured Baron Rikard, lazily watching three little boys pole a raft past.

‘Burning people may not be to everyone’s taste,’ observed Balthazar, ‘but it cannot be denied that it is a viable route to improved efficiency. When the armies of Carthage conquered southern Italia, they built the vast temples on which the Holy City itself now stands. When they conquered northern Italia, their peerless Witch Engineers dammed the Po and the Piave, drained the lagoon, and founded this great city on the fertile land beneath.’

‘Greatest city in the world,’ murmured Marangon from the platform at the stern, flinging the pole up through his hands, water dripping from it onto the boat like spotty rain.

‘The denizens of Krakow, Atlantis, Dijon, and many others would make their own claims, of course,’ said Balthazar, ‘as the denizens of Europe’s great metropoleis so love to do, but you would have a case. Certainly in her heyday. The Carthaginians built great villas here, and swarming markets, and lofty temples, and civic projects to eclipse anything we dream of in these petty latter days. As their Empire spread around the Mediterranean, even as far as Troy, this was their northern capital.’

‘So what went wrong?’ asked Alex, hoping to put off answering questions by asking her own.

‘An enemy boiled out of the east unlike any Carthage had faced before, whose fanaticism and mastery of magic matched their own. Can you guess who?’

Sunny blinked suddenly into view, perched on the very stern of the barge behind Marangon, out of sight of Balthazar. She opened her eyes very wide and pointed to herself with both hands, then took a breath and blinked away again.

‘The elves?’ ventured Alex.

Balthazar looked faintly put out. ‘Gratifying that something at least is going in. Repelling the elves sapped all the strength of mighty Carthage, and their many human enemies took advantage of their weakness. The greatest Empire the world has seen, riven by internal struggles and pressed on every border, collapsed under its own weight. Its western parts tottered on for a century or two, then flew into fragments. Venice elected themselves a Doge and clung on to a few splinters of territory. Bits of the Dalmatian Coast, Ragusa …’

‘Ragusa’s lovely,’ murmured Baptiste.

‘Everyone likes Ragusa,’ said Baron Rikard.

‘… some islands in the Aegean. Even as the cult of the Saved rose and bound the feuding tribes of Europe together. Even as the elves boiled from the east again, and into the Holy Land, and even as the crusades against them proudly flared up and ignominiously died down. Even as war, and plague, and famine swept the continent, and the big heads traded the big hats of the world, some vestige of lost glories remained here.’

Again the slapping as Marangon flung the pole up, hand-over-hand, again the patter of fat drops from the wood.

‘So …’ Alex pronounced each word carefully. ‘What went wrong?’

Balthazar sank smugly back. ‘It might be fifty years ago, now—’

‘Fifty-two on the thirteenth of Mercy,’ said Marangon.

‘There were storms all through spring and into summer. More rain than anyone could remember. And the great dam across the Po, a thousand years old and more—’

‘Burst,’ grunted Jakob.

Balthazar bared his teeth. ‘Honestly, I don’t even get to deliver my own punchlines any more. The lagoon flooded again. The poorer districts, on the higher ground, were mostly spared, but the best parts of town, close to the water …’

‘Became the worst parts of town,’ said Jakob.

‘Up to their necks in the drink,’ added Baptiste.

‘The great achievements of the ancients.’ Baron Rikard smiled faintly as he let his hand trail in the water. ‘Undone by rain.’

‘Sometimes, in a dry year, the waters drop, and the mosaics of the great forum are revealed once again, and people get their ground floors back.’ Balthazar waved towards old tidemarks striping the nearest corner. ‘In the wettest years every house becomes its own little island.’

‘I understand Saint Michael’s Cathedral is usually flooded,’ said Brother Diaz. ‘They have little barges instead of pews.’

‘Can’t they fix the dam?’ asked Alex.

‘Easily,’ said Balthazar. ‘All one need do is bring the matchless architects of ancient Afrique back from the dead. Otherwise, forget it. The elves toppled the Tower of Numbers in Antioch, and the English burned the Library at Calais, and the Witch Engineers of Carthage, daring any risk in their attempts to turn the tide, opened a gate to hell and destroyed their own city.’

‘I’ve yet to see a gate to hell turn out well.’ Vigga sadly shook her head. ‘Makes you wonder why they keep opening the bastards.’

‘Fragments of the Empire remain, scattered about the Mediterranean. The famous Pillar of Troy, most notably, and the knowledge gathered in its storied Athenaeum. But, by and large, the wisdom of that age is blown away as if it had never been.’ Balthazar settled back smugly. ‘Those in power prefer to remain sunken in ignorance.’

‘It’s not the wisdom to build that was lost.’ Jakob caught a mossy post beside the boat. ‘It’s the will.’ And he dragged himself up onto a rickety little jetty with a growl.

‘They won a lot of battles,’ Baptiste considered a crumbling temple across the way, its tide-stained pillars half-sunk in the sea, ‘and built a lot of grand things, so people always forget.’

‘Forget what?’ asked Alex.

‘What absolute wankers the Carthaginians were. How many dead slaves are sunk in the drowned foundations of this city, do you think?’

‘Lots.’ Balthazar shrugged. ‘But you can’t build big without a few bodies.’

If Alex had been picking somewhere to rob, and it would not have been the first time, the illusionist’s house wouldn’t have been her first pick. Or even her tenth. Next to the crumbling palaces in the neighbourhood it was squat and boxy, unadorned except by a riot of dead creeper, with narrow windows and steps leading up out of the water to a pillared porch on the first floor.

Alex looked down at it from a balcony across the flooded way, her elbows resting on the pitted parapet and her chin planted on her fists. ‘Doesn’t look too magical,’ she muttered.

‘Not to the naked eye.’ Balthazar had a set of coloured lenses on a ring like a bunch of keys and was peering at the house through them, one after another. ‘Certainly not to the naked eye of an idiot.’

‘No one comes near it,’ said Jakob, frowning down with his arms folded. No boats in the flooded streets around the building. No people at the shuttered windows facing it. No birds even, on the roofs.

‘Folk say it’s cursed,’ grunted Marangon.

‘And they are correct.’ Balthazar turned to face them. ‘If only in the crudest of senses.’ He still had one lens to his face and it made his eye look ridiculously small. And orange. ‘The aura is quite exceptional, especially around the north-eastern corner, though that is of course to be expected, considering the prevailing wind.’ He riffled through the lenses and held another up to his eye. ‘There are at least three separate and quite powerful enchantments woven into the building, as well as some traces of a bound entity.’

‘Entity?’ grunted Jakob, wincing. ‘Never liked the word.’

‘Then I am,’ droned Balthazar, ‘ as usual , finding the correct one for the circumstance.’

Baptiste glanced at Alex, and they rolled their eyes at the same time.

‘There is something in the walls …’ Balthazar had moved on to combinations of lenses now. ‘Copper wire? Lead in the plaster? It is quite impossible to see inside from this vantage point.’

Jakob glanced sideways. Just with his eyes, as if turning his whole head would be too much effort. ‘But you can handle it?’

‘Twice before breakfast.’ Balthazar swept from the balcony and, puffing her cheeks out yet again, Alex followed him.

Their apartment was on the top floor of a great damp pile that might well have been built by the Carthaginians but hadn’t been given much attention since. There wasn’t a right angle anywhere. None of the doors fitted their frames and the slanted floors groaned at each footstep as if one person’s extra weight might make the whole place subside into the lagoon. You couldn’t grumble at the scale, mind you. The main room could’ve held a whole fish market. Which would’ve been handy, since you could’ve caught the fish in the flooded street outside.

‘I suppose this will serve as an adequate stage for the relevant rituals.’ Balthazar glanced about the decaying room with his nose wrinkled. ‘But I cannot do everything myself.’

‘Don’t tell me.’ Jakob gave a gravelly sigh. ‘Someone will have to go inside.’

‘So you are cleverer than you look.’

‘Not much,’ murmured Baptiste, from the corner of her mouth.

‘Don’t get too smart,’ grunted Jakob. ‘You’re coming with me.’

She planted her hands on her hips and muttered at the ceiling. ‘I should’ve quit after Barcelona.’

‘There are a very great number of things I will need,’ said Balthazar, taking Marangon by the lapel, ‘foremost among them punctuality and precision . Tell me you have a notebook. Good. I trust you write quickly because I am never in a mood to dawdle. A full set of conjurer’s circles, of course – bronze, not brass, obviously, we’re not primitives – and a better set of lenses, salt and candles of the highest quality …’

‘You and Brother Diaz stay here.’ Jakob was looking at Alex like a docker at a crate he couldn’t see how to shift. ‘Baron Rikard will keep you company.’

Alex glanced over at the baron, apparently asleep on a battered couch with the back of one hand over his eyes, like a fainting matron. ‘Don’t tell me he doesn’t bite.’

‘I won’t bite you, anyway,’ he droned, without moving his hand. ‘I have some standards.’

‘But you should be ready,’ said Jakob. ‘In case something goes wrong.’

‘That does seem to happen a bit …’ muttered Alex.

‘Do you have a knife?’

She slid it out with some reluctance. The crosspiece shaped like a snake, the little red jewels where its eyes should be.

Jakob looked it over with the kind of approval she never got herself. ‘Fit for a princess.’

‘Duke Michael gave it me. At the inn.’ And all she’d done with it was toss it away. While crawling in the muck and begging for her life, as it happened.

‘You know how to use it?’

Alex frowned back at him. ‘If I really don’t like someone, I stick it in the bastard.’

‘This end first.’ Jakob rested a fingertip gently against the point. ‘Have you done that before?’

‘I’ve been in a few fights.’ She licked her lips. ‘Lost most of ’em.’

‘I’ve been in quite a few. Even won some. And take it from me, because it might save your life – a fight is always a gamble.’ Jakob stepped close, so his shadow fell across her, and she had to look sharply up into his craggy face. ‘And you are small, and weak, and unskilled. Your chances of beating a strong man in a fair fight are close to none.’

‘If you’re trying to talk me up you need some practice.’

‘So you make the fight as unfair as you can. Trickery and surprise are your weapons. Those and a lack of pity. Show me how you’d grip it.’

She’d seen her share of knife fights in the slums, so she knew how the bravos did it. She held it tight, forefinger around the crosspiece, and bent her knees, and stuck the blade out in front of her and swished it about a bit, baring her teeth and making a hiss that aimed at viper but likely fell well short.

Jakob, certainly, was unterrified. ‘Very …’

‘Don’t say ferrety.’

‘… fierce , but I think, for you …’ He took her wrist and pushed it down, turning the dagger all the way around so the blade was pressing up against the underside of her forearm. ‘The first time they know you have a knife should be when it’s in their guts. Now maybe shrink down, and cringe a bit more. Can you cry?’

It wasn’t difficult. She’d felt close to tears for a while now.

‘Nice. Beg for your worthless life.’

‘Wouldn’t be my first time.’ Or even her tenth.

‘Use what you have, then. Make them careless, draw them close. Then strike with all the rage you can muster. We all have some.’

‘Reckon I can dig up a little.’

‘Good.’ He waved at his own body like a butcher showing the cuts on a carcass. ‘Gut, groin, throat all work. And never stop at one. You’d be amazed by the wounds men’ll keep fighting with.’

‘Oh, I’ve seen some things you wouldn’t believe, recently.’

‘Keep stabbing till you’re sure they’re dead.’ Jakob gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder, then turned away. ‘Brother Diaz! You ever swing an axe?’

Balthazar was still droning out his shopping list. ‘… apothecary’s scales, proper ones, a full set of alchemist’s spoons, a good alembic and an oil burner, some nightshade, of course, and it must be fresh, none of that dried rubbish, and do you know of any twins who died recently?’ There was a silence while everyone glanced over. ‘Well, if you are in there, and I am out here, we will require some method of communication. Or were you planning to just … shout across the street?’

Marangon scratched thoughtfully at his stubbly throat. ‘The Visentins. Brother and sister. He went a couple of months back. Her last week. Think they were twins.’

‘Excellent,’ said Balthazar brightly. ‘Put them on the list, too.’