My left side burned, and I couldn't even feel the Grail as it slipped away from me. Someone shoved me forward and I stumbled, tripping over my own feet that refused to respond to my mental commands. I was as clumsy as a bull in the ring, weakened by blood loss from the picador's lance.
The Spear was pulled out, a savage yank more traumatic than the initial thrust. My legs gave way, and I collapsed in a heap, banging my elbow and forehead on the floor. The Grail struck the marble and rang with a muffled note, almost a sob; or maybe the sound came from my throat. I wasn't sure.
The world was inverted. Gravity flowed in the wrong direction, and my ears were filled with a buzzing harmonic tone. In the distance, Vivienne stood upside down, clinging to the floor like a vampire bat. The Grail lay nearby, its cloth cover coming undone, like a partially unwrapped Christmas present.
It's not time, I thought. Not yet.
I reached for the trailing edge of the cloth, my fingers groping desperately for the fabric.
"No, my friend," Antoine said as he put his foot down on my arm. "Not this time."
With a smooth motion, he brought the Spear down and I thought I saw the sun break through the fog, but there was no fog, nor was there any sun. It was just the fiery touch of the Spear as it cut through the flesh and muscle and bone of my wrist.
Antoine, his body shivering and glittering with the fading magick of the spell which had hidden him from my sight, crouched so that he could look me in the eyes. "Endgame," he smiled-that old, feral grin of his. "Your part in this Weave is done. It is my turn now."
I tried to grab the Grail again, but my stump just shook and spat blood all over the cloth. I tried to find the Chorus-to make them heal me, to tell them to make the pain go away-but they were scattered in my head. Like single fireflies, strewn across an acre of open field. I couldn't catch them. I couldn't hold them. I couldn't hold anything. Long smears blurred across my field of vision.
Antoine put his foot against my side and shoved. As I slid across the floor, my head flopped around and I could see Vivienne, who hadn't moved. Who did nothing but watch as Antoine pushed me toward the open elevator shaft. I reached out to her, or maybe I just wanted her to see the stump of my arm.
My right leg went over the lip of the elevator, and my left feebly tried to find some purchase on the cold marble floor. My left hand scrabbled on the smooth floor, and when I couldn't grab something there, I tried for Antoine's leg as he shoved me one last time. I felt the fabric of his trousers slip through my fingers. Too much blood. Too slick.
Vivienne never looked away as Antoine shoved me into the elevator shaft. And what made me let go, what extinguished the fading hope in my chest, was her expression. She knew he had been waiting for me. She had known his plan. This was her revenge, allowing one suitor to murder another. Or perhaps it was deeper than that. Perhaps this was her message to Marielle. You took my father; I will take your lover.
But we both knew it was an empty message.
She had warned me, but I hadn't listened.
Goddess help you, Michael Markham, if you are that alone.
I was just the dumb courier. I was expendable. A piece to be used and then discarded.
Antoine had warned me too. I will be patient.
I hadn't listened.
THE FIFTH WORK
Felix Anima
O libenter veniam ad vos ut prebeatis michi osculum cordis.
It is our duty to fight alongside you, o daughter of the king.
XXXI
In each corner of the room, squat stands with a dozen candles each provided illumination. Not enough to reach to the ceiling, not enough to reach to Heaven, but enough to light the lower realm. Opposite me, hidden by muslin screens, was a narrow bed, and shadows danced on the wall behind the bed, phantasmal figures partially visible over the top edge of the screens. Whoever lay in the bed was tied down. I could see enough through the gaps between the screens to discern that the figure wore a plain cotton habit, and judging by the shape of the bare foot I glimpsed, it was a woman.
Kneeling beside the bed-on the side where there were no screens-were three figures. Plain brown robes, belted with long strands of polished beads. Their hoods were up, hiding their faces. The one on the left was holding the long strand of his rosary, his fingers working the beads as he prayed. The one on the right had his hands clasped over his ample stomach, and from the angle of his hood, I wondered if he was praying or sleeping. The one in the middle leaned forward, his hands on the edge of the bed, listening intently to the sounds coming from the woman's mouth.
She was making guttural noises: not quite words, not quite moans of pain; growling as if there was something in her mouth, something obstructing her lips and teeth. Whatever she was saying was important enough that he listened, but not so important that he took the gag out. As if the sound of her voice was more important than the actual words she was trying to say.
What I say and what I mean are never the same.
Something cold touched my side, and startled by the invasiveness of the sensation, by the reminder of my own flesh, I tore my gaze away from the tableau of the madwoman and the priests attending her. There was a hole in my chest, one that wept blood, and for a moment, I couldn't remember how I had received such a wound.
I fell, John.
A fourth priest, kneeling beside the chair in which I was sprawled, was wiping the flow away with a blood-stained cloth. He held the rag over a narrow basin and wrung it out. Blood spattered on the dusty floor, leaving tiny blots of blackness.
My right arm ached; more blood-stained rags were wrapped around the truncated end, and around my forearm, a chain of glass beads-black as night-had been cinched tight. The rosary tourniquet. The silver medallion lay on the underside of my arm, pressed tight against my skin by the loops of the beads. The silver ball on the end of the chain-the sphere that hid the cross-hung from an inch of chain near my elbow. It knocked against the wooden frame of the chair as I shifted my dead weight.
The priest attending me pressed his cloth against my chest wound again and I recognized the blunt shape of his hands. I reached over and tugged back his hood. "Hello, John," I said. "Thank you for trying to save me."
Detective John Nicols nodded. "They say you can't feel anything, but I think they're wrong." As a spirit, he looked much more rested. More at peace with himself.
I looked away, directing my attention to the three wise men. "They've been pretty right so far."
"You're letting them be right," Nicols said. "You're believing what they tell you."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Because they've also said everything they tell you is a lie."
Nothing is true; everything is possible. When Nicols and I had first met, I had thrown that old phrase at him. Mainly to rile him up, but there was some truth to its seeming contradiction. You could find some freedom in the chaos of that phrase. You could liberate yourself from the tyranny of those old manacles of William Blake's-those mind-forg'd ones-by adopting such an axiom as the foundation of your belief. Nothing is true, and so why believe in anything other than what you wish? Everything is possible, so why not dream of meeting God?