Black Light

where the ancient gods of the earth had walked and been worshipped, in Crete or along the Ganges, in Siberia or the Orkneys—there the Benandanti had built their own temples and places of learning, their banks and basilicas and steel-lined bunkers. All were linked by the Benandanti’s portals, each bearing the Benandanti’s motto— Omnia Bona Bonis—in carven script or hidden cantrip. If you were to look at a map of the world the Benandanti had made, it would be webbed with these portals and the occult paths between them, the way a lacquered globe can be webbed with cracks. And in the same manner that the globe will break, its veneer shatter, when the cracks overtake it, so the Benandanti had shaped their assault upon the old world and old gods that had preceded their own: by stealth and manipulation, thievery and coercion, auto-da-fe and conversion.

But yet there were places on the earth where the Benandanti did not hold sway. And it was to one of these that Balthazar Warnick had come after witnessing the destruction of the herm—

Bolerium. He went unwilling, but unable to resist the summons.

For summons it had been, just as Ralph Casson had said. No vision of Giulietta Masparutto could have gone unanswered, no thought of her brushed away; no matter that it scorched him, left him breathless and burning as though he had stuck his hand into a bonfire. Balthazar could no more ignore the memory of that voice and its whispering echo through the eons, than he could have torn his soul and mind from the battle he had entered into when the hills around him were covered with trees, and the standing stones stained red with wine and blood.

So he had entered Bolerium; uninvited, unseen. It was a sacred place, as sacred to the Malandanti as the Divine was to the Good Walkers. For two thousand years Bolerium had been one of their last refuges, and no one of the Benandanti’s portals would vouchsafe entry there. Instead Balthazar had made his journey from the Orphic Lodge and entered Affon, and from thence had used one of the ancient propylons that served as stepping-stones between past and future, joining the holy places of Benandanti and Malandanti alike.

Because Heraclitus was wrong. You could step into the same river twice. Time itself was that river, the Benandanti and Malandanti its navigators; their respective gods the stars they steered by. But in going to Bolerium, Balthazar had made his way through treacherous shoals, and risked more than he cared to think about.

Now he could see the propylon that had served as his way station: a granite pillar twice man-high, plain and unadorned where it sat upon the very top of the hill. At its base thistles nodded in the wind, and bright yellow finches worried their seeds with plaintive voices. Balthazar gave a sigh of relief. He stepped toward the propylon, and immediately went crashing to the ground.

“No—you—don’t—” a voice gasped behind him. Someone grappled with his legs; Balthazar kicked out awkwardly and pulled away. He sat up, panting, and saw Ralph Casson sprawled in the high grass. Around his right eye a series of fine crimson lines radiated, as though it were a medieval image of the sun. Drawn in the air behind him was the blurred outline of a door, and within that faint rectangle Balthazar could just make out the corridor he had fled, vying with the misty stretch of sky above the sea.

“Tag,” Ralph said, and grinned. “You’re it.”

Balthazar stumbled to his feet. “You can do nothing here!”

“Nor can you,” retorted Ralph. He stood and brushed grass from his suit jacket, its vivid ultramarine muted in the brilliant light. He looked around, blinking. For an instant sheer wonder washed across his face, and Balthazar could see a ripple of the boy in the ruins of the man he had become. The ardent undergraduate too easily moved to tears; the older student infuriated by the revelations of Procopius, himself a loyal Benandante, and that vengeful courtier’s venomous attacks upon the imperial consort Theodora; the longhaired young man with head bent over Girardius’s account of the Necromantic Bell in one of the secret libraries at the Divine, his lips moving as he first uttered the words of the incantation that would make final his betrayal, and his expulsion.

But then Ralph turned to face his former mentor. Amazement faded into mistrust and restrained fury as he gingerly touched the web of broken skin around his eye. “You should not have done that, Balthazar,” he said softly. “I came to you in good faith, to bring you news of your lover—”

Balthazar broke in angrily. “You manifested a sending at the Lodge—”

“I did not. That was no vision, Balthazar—the god walks, the cycle begins. He drinks and fucks and readies himself for his rebirth, even as we speak. This is what your carelessness has cost the Benandanti, Professor. You should have been more vigilant. The times were propitious for his return, the world is ready—as ready as it gets, these days,” he added with a shrug. “Time to face the music, Balthazar! Your reign is almost over. And that”— He swept his hand out, indicating the ghostly door in the air behind them. —“that is where it will all end: in Bolerium.”

“In delirium, more likely,” said Balthazar. He had calmed himself enough that his voice was steady, though he kept his hands in his pockets so Ralph would not see how they still trembled. “He’s not a very reliable god, is he, Ralph? And Axel Kern is rather a poor choice of avatar—he’s too well-known! Who would dare kill him? The cycle will never be completed,” he ended, and allowed himself a smile.

“You’re wrong, Professor Warnick. His followers—”

“Lackeys,” said Balthazar derisively. “Drug addicts, prostitutes, inverts—none of them could do it. They wouldn’t dare—that would be like tearing up their meal ticket, wouldn’t it? And I imagine most of them possess a minute degree of feeling, or common sense, certainly enough to keep them from murdering him. Not to mention the complicated legal situation that would devolve—some deranged hophead slaying a famous film director in the name of an ancient religious rite!”

Balthazar laughed. “No, I just can’t see it, Ralph. Who would do it? Willingly, mindfully, in accordance with the mysteries? No one—”

“The girl would.” Ralph’s face had turned crimson; the outlines of the wound Balthazar had given him bled into his rage. “The girl you remember as Giulietta: Charlotte Moylan. Lit.”

Balthazar froze. “You’re lying,” he whispered. Though he knew, had always somehow known, it was the truth.

“No, Balthazar. I’m not lying. She was chosen years ago. She’s his goddaughter, she grew up within the enclave—”

“Does she know?” Balthazar’s voice cracked. “Does she—”

“She knows nothing,” said Ralph. Relieved, Balthazar closed his eyes for an instant, opened them to see the other man staring at him. “Yet. In Kamensic they all grow up under the Malandanti’s protection, but the children never know, not at first…

“But she will learn, Balthazar. She is with him at this very moment. And you know what happens next —”

“I forbid it.”

Ralph burst out laughing. “Forbid it? Don’t be an idiot! You’re not her father— you’re not even her lover, now. No, there’s nothing you can do, Balthazar, except maybe watch the proceedings…”

His laughter trailed off into the sound of waves and birds wheeling overhead. He threw his head back, staring into the sky as Balthazar watched him measuringly. For several minutes neither man spoke. Then,

“I will go to her,” Balthazar said. Absently he plucked a yellow gorse blossom, rubbing its petals between his fingers. “She’ll listen, she’ll remember—”

“She will be afraid of you.” Menace undercut Ralph’s tone as he tore his gaze from the sky. “There was a sending, but it wasn’t of the fallen herm. I showed her you, Balthazar. In various fancy dress, and doing an estimable job of presiding over various rites—”

“She’ll know it was false!”

“But it wasn’t all false, Balthazar. I showed her Corey at Herculaneum—hard to forget such a thing if you see it at an impressionable age, isn’t it? And as for the rest, why would she doubt it?” Ralph shot the other man a look composed equally of pity and disdain. “She’s just a girl, Balthazar. She has no knowledge, no memory of you or your history. Her parents serve the god but they aren’t adepts—they’re actors. Mediocre actors,” he added with a trace of viciousness. “Ignorant. That is what the great Dionysos is reduced to now—whores and speed freaks.”

“Then why do you serve him, Ralph?” For the first time Balthazar’s tone was genuinely curious.

“I serve nobody. I told you that ten years ago—”