The Providence Rider (26 page)

“How so?”

“Incorrect…in your statement that Professor Fell created Cymbeline. He did not. It was my idea. My creation. My unremitting labor of mind and resources. And I am very good at what I do, Mr. Spade. So that is your first error, which I am glad to adjust.” He blew a small spout of smoke in Matthew’s direction. “Your second error,” he went on, “is that Cymbeline is a
device
. Oh, did you believe it was some kind of multiple-barrelled cannon dreamt up by an eccentric inventor?”

“Not exactly.” Though the idea had crossed Matthew’s mind. He had experience with multiple-barrelled guns and eccentric inventors.

“Cymbeline,” said the weapons expert, “is the foundation upon which future devices shall be constructed. Whoever possesses it has a distinct advantage on any battlefield, and thus its immense worth to many countries.”

“I see that, but if many countries have it…wouldn’t that mean Cymbeline has become obsolete?”

“The nature of the beast,” Symthe granted, with a snort of smoke through the pinched nostrils. “There will always be something beyond Cymbeline, and something beyond that, until the end of time.”

Matthew brought up a thin smile. “It seems to me, sir, that your business ultimately hastens the end of time.”

“That will happen after I am long gone.” Smythe tapped a finger against the bowl of his pipe, whose flame had deceased. “Therefore it is not my concern. But I will inform you that it is the
professor’s
business, not mine. I am the hand, he is the brain.”

A simple way to seek escape from blame, Matthew thought. He wondered if indeed Edgar Smythe’s brain had not begun to believe treachery against England was not worth money in the hand. “The Cymbeline,” Matthew persisted bullheadedly, as was his wont. “Whatever it is…why is it called that?”

Smythe began to turn through the pages of
Cymbeline
. “Professor Fell titled it. After a line from the play. Just a moment, I’ll find it. Ah…here it is. Actually a stage direction:
Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle; he throws a
thunderbolt
.” Smythe looked up from the page with an expression that could only be bemusement, though on that sour face it was hard to tell. “The professor enjoys his drama.”

“Yes,” Matthew agreed. “Undoubtedly.”

Smythe stood up. He gathered his sheets of parchment, took the volume and slid it back into its place on one of the shelves. “I will say good morning to you, then. And I hope your day is pleasant. I have a report to give to the professor this afternoon. When are you giving yours?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You’re an odd sort,” Smythe said, his head tilted slightly to one side as if seeing Nathan Spade in a different light. “Are you sure you belong here?”

“I must. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“So you are.” Smythe started for the doors.

“Let me ask you one more question,” Matthew persisted, and Smythe paused. “Who is Brazio Valeriani?”

“Someone the professor seeks. That’s all I know.”

“Is he connected to the Cymbeline?”

Smythe frowned; it was, in truth, a horrible sight. “I have heard things,” he said, quietly. “And no, Valeriani is
not
connected to the Cymbeline. It’s another matter altogether. But I have heard…” He hesitated, staring at the floor. “Unsettling things,” he continued, as with an effort. The face lifted and the gray eyes were darkly-hollowed. “This is not something you should be concerned with, young man. If what I have heard is true…if any
part
of it is true…you will wish you never heard that name.”

“Why does the professor seek him?”

“No.”
Smythe shook his head. “You will get none of it from me, nor from anyone else here. That is as far as I go. Good day.”

“Good day,” Matthew answered, for Edgar Smythe the weapons expert was already going through the doors and gone.

Matthew was left alone in the library. Hundreds of books—large and small, thick and thin—were there before him on the shelves. Ordinarily this would have been a dream come true for him, but some element of evil lay coiled in this room and therefore it was an oppressive place, an atmosphere of dark brooding. But the books called to him nevertheless, and in another moment he was walking past the shelves looking at the titles stamped upon leather. He reached out a hand to accept Nicolaus Copernicus’
De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium
, but his hand then moved to touch the red spine of Homer’s
Odyssey
.
Next to it beckoned three thick volumes of English sea voyages and navigational studies, and next to that one…

Odd
, Matthew thought.

He took the book from its place. It was a battered brown leather edition titled
The
Lesser Key Of Solomon
. Matthew recalled seeing an edition of this book before, in the ruins of Simon Chapel’s library just before his involvement with Tyranthus Slaughter. In a way, this book had caused him quite a lot of misery, for that copy he’d found in Chapel’s library had been hollowed out and literally held a key to unlock a book—
The History of
Locks As Regards The Craft of Ancient Egypt and Rome
—that had concealed a bagful of Professor Fell’s money. Which had put him nearly on the road to ruin, regarding his future fate and the health of Hudson Greathouse. But now…finding a
second
copy of this book, here in the professor’s own library…

Odd
.

This book appeared to be only a book, not a depository. Matthew opened it and began to turn through the yellowed pages, and at once he realized that the God Professor Fell was playing to be might have another side altogether.

The Lesser Key Of Solomon
was a book describing the demons of Hell.

In Latin script and prints of woodcut drawings, the descriptions of these dark dwellers were quite vivid. The demonic entities appeared as such things as animalish creatures with blade-like claws, spidery denizens of nightmare worlds and shadowy combinations of man, beast and insect. They were given titles, as befitted the nobility of the netherworld.

Matthew came upon a page depicting the stork-like Earl Malthus. The text reported this monstrosity as an expert in building towers filled with ammunition and weapons, and who was noted for speaking in a disturbingly rough voice.

He turned the pages. There was Prince Sitri and Marquis Phenex, Duke Vepar and King Belial. There was Count Renove, Prince Vassago, King Zagan and Duke Sallos. More pages were turned, and more demons revealed in all their ghastly inhuman but human-like shades: King Baal, Duke Barbatos, Prince Seere, Marquis Andras, Count Murmur, Duke Ashtaroth, President Caim, Duke Dantalion, Marquis Shax and on and on. It took a steady hand and a steely nerve to view these woodcut impressions and read this text of otherworldly horrors. Each demon had a specialty…king of liars, activator of corpses, deliverer of madness, creator of storms, destroyer of cities and the dignity of men, power over the spirits of the dead, the sowing of the bitter seeds of jealousy and discord, the transformation of men into wolves and crows and creatures of the night, the power to burn anything on earth to utter ash.

And, as he turned the pages, Matthew realized with a start of further horror that not only did this book depict the demons of Hell, but it also contained spells and rituals to call them from their caverns at the end of time to do the bidding of men.

This room suddenly seemed much too small and too terribly dark. Matthew wished to put the book away, to get it out of his hands lest it blister the flesh, and yet…

…and yet…

It had caught him. He, who had seen through the artifice of an evil man in positioning an innocent woman as a witch in a town called Fount Royal. He, who had no belief in witches and demons and things that went bump in the night. He, who viewed facts as facts and superstitions as the coinage of a past century. He, who would champion himself for that woman named Rachel Howarth but would not give a cup of warm piss to the idea of demons riding the currents of the whirlwinds. He, who did not believe in such fantasy.

But…perhaps the owner of this book did?

And he believed so strongly that he had shared another copy with his associate Simon Chapel, who had—perhaps in his own revulsion or sense of irony—turned it into a key-box?

Matthew had to get out of this room. He needed light and air. He took the
Lesser
Key
with him, through the louvered doors onto the balcony. Sunlight and warm air hit him in the face. He smelled the salt of the sea and saw the bright glittering shine of morning light upon the waves below. The balcony had a white stone railing and balustrade. At both corners, just beyond the railing, were ledges upon which was situated a white stone seahorse standing up nearly as large as a real stallion, a remarkable job of sculpture. Matthew held the book at his side and drew in long draughts of the sea air to clear his head. He wasn’t sure what he had stumbled upon, but he felt quite sure he had stumbled upon
something
.

And then he saw her, down below, sitting cross-legged upon her rock.

Fancy, they called her. Her body nude and brown and glistening, her long hair black as a raven’s wing, her face turned toward the far horizon where the waves broke upon an unknown shore. To them, Fancy. To him…possibly Pretty Girl Who Sits Alone. And to him, another one to champion. To save. To free, if he could. It was in his nature to do so, and calling himself Nathan Spade in this vile gathering of greedy men and women did not change that.
Could
not change that.
Would
not change that.

“Mornin’,” came the voice behind him.

And a second voice, following: “…boyo.”

Matthew turned quickly toward the two brothers, as they came onto the balcony from shadow into sunlight that seemed suddenly blighted in its wet and sultry heat.

“Spadey himself,” said Mack, with a cold grin on a face that appeared red-eyed and bloated, the same as his twin’s. Both men were carrying bottles they’d picked up from the drink table in the library, and Matthew judged them to have been downing the liquor since the breaking of dawn a couple of hours ago. That, or they’d been drunk all night and had emerged to replenish their supply. Both men wore the breeches of their red suits, and both had spilled upon their wrinkled gray shirts copious amounts of liquid danger. Their sleeves were rolled up to display the thick forearms of tavern brawlers, ready to strike.

“…all
by
himself,” Jack added. He stood in the doorway as Mack got up nearly chin to chin with Matthew. Yes, the breath could have knocked over one of the stone seahorses, and Matthew steeled himself not to retreat from its sour flames.

“Where’s your knife-thrower now?” Mack asked.

“Ain’t here,” said Jack.

“’Tis a pity,” said Mack.

“Solid shame,” Jack lamented.

“Oh the agony of it, to be young and handsome, and so mannered and smart to boot…and yet be forgot about, up here alone.”

“Way up here,” Jack said, and now he drank from his uncorked bottle and came upon the balcony with his eyes narrowed into slits. “All alone.”

Matthew’s heart was beating hard. The sweat pulsed at his temples. By the greatest effort he kept fear out of his face, even as the Thackers positioned themselves on either side of him, shoulders pressed against his body and pinioning him in. “I was just on my way to breakfast,” he said. “If you’ll pardon me?”

“Mack,” said Jack, and another drink went down his pipe, “I don’t think Spadey likes us.”

“Don’t like us worth a shitty shillin’,” said Mack, who also swigged from his own bottle. “And him such a
worldly
gentleman. Makes me feel like he thinks he’s better than most.”

“Better’n
us
, you’re sayin’,” Jack prodded.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m sayin’.”

“Said correctly, brother.”

“So sad to say.”

“Sad,” said Jack.

“Awful most,” said Mack, with his grin still in place and his green eyes showing a dull glare.

“Oh, mercy me.” Jack had taken note of the figure on the rock. “Looky what Spadey’s been lookin’ at.”

Mack saw, and nodded gravely. “Looky, looky. But don’t touch the nooky.”

“Think he’d like to touch it,” said Jack.

“Think he’d like to roll in it,” said Mack.

“Agreed, brother,” they said, almost as one.

“Gentlemen,” said Matthew, and perhaps now was the time to get out while he could, for he sensed violence about to rear its ugly head, “I admire your taste in women. I would ask where you found such a lovely specimen.”

“
Specimen
,” said Jack, with a snort that blew bits of snot from his nostrils. “Makes our Fancy sound like a fuckin’
worm
, don’t he?”

“Like a bug, crawled from under a rock,” Mack observed.

“No disrespect meant.” Matthew realized it was a lost cause; these bully boys were wanting to thrash him, come what may, and Matthew’s plan was to get their minds on Fancy and then—ignominiously or not—bolt from the balcony as soon as he could. “I was wondering where I might find a woman of that breed?”

“You can
buy
’em, boyo, on the pussy market.” Jack leaned in, leering, his breath smelling of whiskey sharpened by snakeheads. “I thought that was your fuckin’
business
.”

“’Cept we didn’t buy Fancy,” Mack confided, and now he put an arm around Matthew’s shoulders in a way that made Matthew’s spine crawl. “We come across her owned by a gentleman gambler in Dublin. He’d won her at the faro table last year…”

“Year before that,” Jack corrected.

“Whenever.” Mack’s grip tightened on Matthew’s shoulders. “We decided we’d have her. You listenin’ here? It’s a good story. Wanted to teach him he couldn’t play faro in that tavern without our permission or a piece of the pie, and him riggin’ the box against those other poor punters. We left him crawlin’, didn’t we?”

“Crawlin’ and pukin’ blood,” said Jack.

“Man with no knees left,” said Mack, “has got to crawl.”