Damiano - Raphael Part 6

The same four notes, building like stairs upon one another. Carving a black path into blackness. They droned on while the soiled moon rolled from the slopes of the eastern hills to its zenith. Untiring, unchanging, they rang over the spa.r.s.e dome of birch trees and down into the pine-woolly coverts below.

At the foot of the hills, beyond the little lakes fed by the streams of Saara's garden, people in the village of Ludica shut their doors and windows, s.h.i.+vering despite August's heat.

And not least of all, Saara's song echoed through the s.p.a.ces of her own head, until she was mad with her own singing, and her mind and soul became the pure instruments of her purpose.

And when the moon balanced directly over the earth- directly over the round moonlike dome of the hill-Saara let the stair she had built open, and she spoke one name.

"Damiano," she whispered. She closed her eyes and let the new silence hang in the air.

There was a whispering around Saara, and a rustle like the soft feathers of many birds. "Speak!" she commanded without opening her eyes.

The rustling grew nearer. It grew warm. "Saara," came the sweet, caressing answer. "My beautiful one. My princess. My queen."

Saara's stern face slackened with sorrow, but only for a moment. "Ruggerio," she whispered.

"Forgive me. I did not mean to wake you." Her eyes screwed themselves more firmly shut.

"I know, bellissima," the thin, distant voice replied, chuckling, and ghostly lips kissed the very tips of her fingers. "And I do not mean to prove a distraction. May all the saints go with you."

Then the air went thick with vague calls and whispers. Saara repeated the one name "Damiano" and sat as still and unyielding as a rock.

One sound rose among the others: that of a man's laughter. But this was not Ruggerio, though it was a voice she recognized. "The greatest witch in the Italics," it pro nounced, and then laughed again. "For a while perhaps. Perhaps stronger than I. But my son was another matter, wasn't he, Saara? My poor, half-blind, mozzarella boy! Who'd have thought it?"

Saara sat as rigid as wood, as stone, and chided her heart for pounding like a hammer. No response she gave to this spirit, and soon it sighed. "Ah. Well, no matter, Saara. G.o.d go with you."

And it was gone. Surprise alone nearly made Saaras eyes crack open, but she restrained herself To think that thirty years of bitterness and fear toward Guillermo Delstrego could lead to this. "G.o.d go with you?"

Had the proud, predatory soul of Delstrego bent to that? She had grown to think the man almost the equivalent of the Liar himself in his wickedness.

Her strength trembled and came near to breaking at this touch to an ancient wound.

But now the hilltop was filled with a confusion of spirits and sounds and the witch's guards came up by instinct.

Presences surrounded her like a roomful of smoke rings, half erased by the moving air. These were perhaps spirits who knew her or had touched somehow her long life, or were by some unknown sympathy attracted to the stern, unseeing woman in white linen, who held the gate open and yet spoke to no one.

For though the spell is called a summoning spell, its effect and its danger is that it brings the user very close to that world which is not a world (being placeless and infinite), wherein a living mortal has no business to wander.

And though there was no malice in the vague fingers that touched Saara, or in the soft whispers that questioned her, there was also not one of them without the power to do Saara great harm (should she letthem), or to cause her great pain (whether she let them or not).

She took a deep, shuddering breath and her nostrils twitched, as though the air were too thick to breathe. "Damiano!" she called again, this time with a touch of urgency.

There was a moments silence, and then came a small voice, a sweet child's piping voice, speaking the language of her northern people. "Mama?" it cried wonderingly. "Is it Mama?"

She gave a despairing gasp. "Go to sleep, baby," she whispered into the blackness, while tears escaped the confines of her closed eyes. "Go back to bed. I will come to you soon."

Now it was late and she had almost no strength left to hold the gate and fight the river of innocent, deadly voices. She had a sudden, desperate idea.. "Little white dog," she called out. "Little white dog of Damiano's. Spot, or whatever your name was... come to me."

"Macchiata," was the matter-of fact answer, which came from very close in front. Saara held to this spirit and let the rest go. She opened her eyes.

Sitting before her, legs splayed, was a very pretty plump girl with hair that shone silver in the moonlight. Her garb, also, was a simple white s.h.i.+ft that gleamed without stain, with a red kerchief which tied about the neck and spread out across her back, sailor fas.h.i.+on. She had little wings like those of a pigeon.

She smiled at Saara with bright interest. Her eyes were brown.

"Some mistake," murmured the witch. "I summoned only a dog. A little white dog which belonged to..."

"To Master-Damiano. Yes, that's me." She started to scratch her spectral left ear with her spectral left hand in short, choppy forward motions. She seemed to get great satisfaction out of doing this.

"Damiano likes me in this form."

"He does?" Saara exclaimed with somewhat affronted surprise. Then she remembered Damiano's peculiar prejudice toward the human form above that of all animals, however splendid. "Well, I thought the dog looked perfectly fine."

Macchiata was still for a moment, and then resumed scratching. She metamorphosed between one stroke and the next, going from girl to dog, and continued her scratch quite contentedly with her hind leg.

"Like that?"

"Lovely," stated Saara.

The deep brown eyes regarded Saara, asking no questions. The white dog smiled with all her formidable teeth exposed and her red tongue lolling to the right. Her fluffy pigeon wings scratched one another's backs behind her.

Saara had not forgotten how last she had seen this animal, frozen like a starved deer in the snow, with her dark master above her, equally frozen with grief. She said, "You died by my hand, dog. But it was not by my intent."

Macchiata pulled her tongue in. Under the spell she had attained an almost lifelike solidity, but still she glowed with milk-gla.s.s light. "I remember-I think. You were upset."

"I was," admitted the greatest witch of the Italics. "Upset and afraid, and I struck thinking only of defending myself. Do you forgive me, spirit?"

The dog, in reply, flopped over on her back. "Sure. Why not? Scratch under my left elbow; I can't reach."

Saara obeyed and was surprised to feel warm fur beneath her hand. "Have you fleas, then?"

"No." As the human's hand rubbed in expanding circles, the dog's left foot began a spastic, regular pawing of the air. Macchiata grunted like a pig. "No. No fleas in heaven. Only scratching."

Saara settled back on her heels and looked about her. The moon was descending the western sky; the night was getting old. "Spirit, I haven't much time. Will you help me find your master? I called and he could not hear me."

"He heard you," said Macchiata, flipping onto her legs. She gave a great shake. "Everyone heard you..You called very loud. He just wouldn't come."

Saara felt a cold needle of misery pierce through her. She was some time in answering. "He...

wouldn't come?"

"No." The dog's nostril's twitched, smelling the salt in Saara's tears. "Don't get upset! He stayed away so you wouldn't get upset. He wanted to come."

Saara swallowed, beyond words for a moment. Finally she said, "I have to see him about Raphael. If I can't help Raphael, I will be very upset."

Macchiata's sticklike tail thumped appreciatively. "I like Raphael. He has never been upset. Never."

"That could change," replied Saara ominously, "unless we help him."

"I'll get Master," announced the dog, and she faded like an afterimage on the eye.

Once Macchiata was gone, Saara wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her s.h.i.+rt and blew her nose into a handful of birch leaves. She had been shaken by every pull on her living memory, and the spirit that had refused to come had shaken her hardest. Had there been some malice in the little creature, to say so brutally "He wouldn't come"? Indeed, the summoning spell was the most dangerous of all spells, to soul and to body, for now that she had done it, she felt hardly the strength or the desire to go on living.

Her children: Could it be they were no more than infant spirits, grown neither in heart nor mind since the day they bled to death with their father on the floor of the hut? Something in Saara, instinct or sense of justice, rebelled at this idea. Was there illusion at the base of the summoning spell? Had Ruggerio not really kissed her fingertips?

Had Guillermo Delstrego not come after thirty years of her hate to say to her, "G.o.d go with you"?

Something had happened nonetheless, and someone had come to her behind the darkness of her closed eyes. It remained to be seen whether her task had succeeded or failed.

She stared at the disk of the descending moon, and so deep in thought was she that she did not notice the silent approach of one behind her.

"Saara," he whispered. "Pikku Saara."

Saara turned slowly, effortfully, as though a great weight sat on her shoulders. She was suddenly afraid.

Behind her, illuminated by the moon, stood the shape of a man. It was dark, from its rough hair to its booted feet, and a cloud surrounded it like great, soft folded wings. As Saara looked up at the apparitions face the wings opened wide.

Smoky he was, and immaterial: not like the dog nor yet like the spirit who had kissed her fingers. For it was not her spell but his own wish that had brought him this very long way to a hill in Lombardy, in August, and he had little magic with which to clothe himself in flesh. Only the eyes of the ghost were clear to see, and full of tenderness.

"Damiano," she began, and her voice left her as she uttered the name. "I'm sorry to call you. I don't want to cause you pain, when you have the right to peace."

He knelt by her, and she sensed in her witch's soul a hand upon her face. "The only pain which can touch me," he whispered, gently and from far away, "is to see this pain in YOUR eyes, Saara. And I will gladly endure it if I can help you. But I didn't think that I could."

"You thought I called you out of loneliness," she stated, and her words held a hint of accusation. "No.

I have more love in me than that, Darni, and more sense too. I called you because of Raphael. He has fallen into the power of the Liar...

"And I... I was the bait used to draw him. It was my fault."

Damiano sank down beside her and the round moon shone un.o.bscured through his spreading wings.

Slowly he grew more solid to look upon, as he gazed rapt into her green, tilted eyes. He put his weightless hands upon hers. "How could it be your fault, love, that Satan hates his brother?" He stroked her weathered hands gently. "If it is a matter of fault, then it is my fault that I wrapped my friend so tightly in the bonds of earth he could no longer stand against the Devil's malice."But the dark unghostly brown eyes reflected no sense of guilt. "There is no fault here at all, Saara, except that of Satan's jealousy. And even that may be borne."

Saara gripped Damiano's large hands. They had become solid and warm. She brought them together and laid them against her cheek.

In another moment he was kissing her and curtains of wing shrouded them both.

"I love you," whispered Damiano, with his head against her neck. "Oh Lady, how I love you!" Arid then he sighed. "Forgive me, Saara; this does no good, I know!"

So it can be done, she thought to herself The dead may touch the living in the very manner of life. Her heart raced, burning with the conviction that all vows would be well broken, and the future profitably traded-in exchange for this.

Saara hissed between her teeth and turned her head from him. "By the four winds! How wise I am-how wretchedly wise. Wise enough to put you aside, dark boy, even if you were fool enough to want to stay with me."

When she looked back again her face had hardened. "You see what a woman can be made of, after seventy years of living? I am so strong even you cannot break me, my dear.

"And as for being hurt-what does it matter if I am hurt, Darni? Why should my friends want to hedge me from my greatest desire lest I be hurt? Is it not to be hurt, to have one's desire thwarted? Is it not to be hurt, to be left always behind?"

She turned on the ghost with a sudden, deep-felt anger. "You thought it were better to hide from me and die, rather than risk being saved at the expense of my life. How n.o.ble it was of you!

"But would it not have been greater to have given me the chance to prove myself as n.o.ble as you? Do you think my own love would have made it less than a joy to die in your place?"

He shook his head, and now the black curls moved with the fingers of the wind. The setting moon haloed his face: large-eyed, ram-nosed, smiling gently. "It would have been a great act, love. I was not capable of it."

Saara was crying, but her voice came firmly. "And Raphael too... Walking into the Liars snare, knowing it was a snare, and I the bait. I told him not to. I told him the truth: that I am old and my life is full-lived. There is nothing which now could please me more than a good death in battle..."

"Which you would not get from Satan," replied the ghost simply, shrugging. "But rather pain, confusion, and the shame of weakness slowly overcoming you, like that of an old man who cannot hold his bladder. The Devil has no sympathy with anything quick and clean, and it isn't human death which pleases him, but human misery." He searched her stern face for understanding.

"But in the end it did not matter, Saara, that you were ready to endure the Devil's torment. I believe you have the strength, beloved, if anyone born has ever had it. But Raphael also knew that if he left you in his brother's power, Satan would merely find another mortal tool, and then another, until Raphael could no longer resist him."

Damiano's voice was slow and gentle, and he caressed her hair as he spoke, and when he was finished all she said was, "I love you, Darni Delstrego. We had only a few days together as man and woman, but when flesh is laid aside I will still love you, then and always."

His sad smile widened, lighting all his face. "You are so beautiful, beloved. Like a great song... As for me, Saara of Saami, there is nothing left but love. That is why I feared to see you, lest it seem to you another abandonment, when the moon sets and I am there no longer."

She whispered, "I have heard your father tonight. And I have heard the voice of my child. I have heard and seen a great deal in my life and I do not call up the dead to ease my heart, but for help."

"Help?" he echoed, and his wings rose expectantly.

"Help in rescuing Raphael."

Those shadowy wings beat the air in complex, unheeded rhythm, as a man may drum his fingers while thinking. "Of course," he murmured at last. "Knowing you, how could I expect less? But I have no magic with which to help you," he replied at last. "Nor force of arms. I am not a spirit of power.""You think not?" Saara looked away from his brown, human, dangerous eyes. "But, I don't seek power but knowledge. Once you summoned the Liar-Satan, as you call him."

"Twice," he replied gravely. "I was a fool."

"But I am not," she stated. "And I do not want to meet Satan again. But I must get to his hall, where he has bound Raphael."

Damiano shook his head. "No, beloved. There is no need. Raphael has pa.s.sed back onto the earth from there."

Her head snapped up. "Where?"

Damiano was slow in replying. "I don't know."

"Have you seen him?"

Once again the spirit smiled slowly, and then he turned his head as though to listen to the rising wind.

At last he replied. "I have been to see him. He is in a dry, hot place. He is on a chain. It is a land to which I never traveled. More than that I can't tell you, for even as I look at you now, Saara, beautiful love, I am not here but far away, and there is little besides you yourself that is clear to my eyes..." And then it seemed he turned and peered down the hill again.

"For I am neither angel nor devil nor G.o.d Himself, to be prowling up and down the living world.

Dead or alive, I am only Damiano, and my eyes have their limits."

She snorted, bending to his humor unwillingly. "Then I shall have to steal into Satan's window, as I first thought."

The smile died from his face as the belly of the round moon touched the hills behind him. "Don't try that, Saara."

"I will. I must," she replied. "Look at me, Damiano. Even simple eyes can see how that I am no more a child. This misadventure has aged me. But I am Saara of the Saami; I know what I must do, and I do it.

"Besides, I have sworn that I will find Raphael, so all choice in the matter is over."

Damiano looked into her green Asiatic eyes and nodded his head in submission to the inevitable. "So you will find him. But not this way. Instead comb all the hot lands of the earth first, and all the places where men are kept on chains."