Arcadia Burns

THE THRICE GREAT


ROSA LISTENED TO THE sound of the attorney’s high heels moving away from them. In the next moment the door into the swimming pool area latched.

Trevini’s lower lip was quivering. “You have so much more of your grandmother in you than I’d assumed,” he whispered. “It’s you here in front of me, but Costanza looks out of your eyes.”

“I’m tired of you, Trevini. Your constant talk, your attempts to influence me—”

“How are you going to manage without me? With the contessa’s help? By betraying me, she’s betrayed the Alcantaras. And she’ll do it again.”

“You’re responsible for the massacre of the di Santis family, the death of the Carnevares in New York and here in Sicily…and you are warning me against betrayal?”

“I’ve done only what your family paid me to do. I’ve worked out strategies. Tactics. I was loyal. You can’t blame me for any of that!”

“The Hungry Man’s Hundinga are prowling the hills around the palazzo. He wants to kill me to punish Alessandro. For something that wasn’t even done by his ancestors—you did it.”

“One Carnevare or a hundred, they’re no loss. Costanza would not have—”

“My grandmother was a monster, in more ways than one.” She gave him a chilly smile. “But I’ve inherited at least one thing from her.” She opened her mouth very slightly, and licked her lips with the snake’s split tongue.

Her vision was also changing. In a shadowy corner above the door, a tiny red source of heat that she couldn’t have seen with human eyes went out. Di Santis had been as good as her word and switched off the camera.

“Have you ever watched a Lamia shift shape, Trevini?” She slowly leaned closer to his face, to make sure that he could see what was happening to her eyes, to their pupils. “Did you ever see Costanza like this? Was that why you were so fascinated by her?”

He kept his cool, she had to give him that. Still, she felt a sense of triumph. She had control of it. For the first time she could keep herself entirely under control. She didn’t exactly understand how she was doing it, only that it went hand in hand with a sense of superiority that she had never experienced before.

“I want answers from you.” It sounded almost like a hiss, hardly at all like her own voice. “If I think that you’re being honest, for once, I’ll let you live.”

How easy it was to say the words. She was slightly alarmed to realize that she meant every word of it. It wasn’t a bluff. It was in her power to give him his life. Or take it away.

Trevini seemed to lose himself in the gaze of her snake’s eyes. Something in his face told her that, at that moment, his will was broken. All at once his humiliating arrogance had disappeared. She could smell vulnerability on his breath. Could pick up the scent of his fear like vapor from his pores.

Her lips, very narrow now, were only a handbreadth away from his face. He was sweating; his eyes were watering. Yet he didn’t blink. He stared at her like a rat driven into a corner.

“Did you know that Apollonio is my father?” she asked.

His lower jaw was shaking slightly, but he said nothing.

Rosa’s voice took on a sharper edge. “Did you know?”

“I…I don’t understand it myself,” he got out. “And that’s the truth. I saw him on the video, but I don’t understand the connection.”

“I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying.”

“I’ve told you that Apollonio was in touch with me after Costanza’s death,” he said hesitantly. “But I never met him in person. I don’t know why Davide is addressed as Apollonio on the video. Do you understand me, Rosa? I simply do not know.”

“Still, you didn’t warn me. Because you wanted me to come to you in a flood of tears, begging you to help me.”

“Di Santis foresaw that it might not turn out that way.”

Rosa’s tongue licked down to her chin. The split tip touched rough reptilian skin. She had to concentrate to halt the transformation at this stage, although she wasn’t sure whether she really wanted to.

“Who’s behind TABULA?”

“Don’t do it,” he said.

She frowned inquiringly, and felt scales trickle down over her nostrils.

“Don’t try to take on TABULA,” he said. “Your grandmother did the only right thing by allying herself with them.”

“Who is TABULA?”

He let out his breath heavily. “No one knows…I don’t know.”

“But you have an idea, don’t you? Costanza must have known. The only question is: Did she find out from you?”

“I have a few scraps, small pieces of the whole truth. No faces, no names. At first I tried to find out more, but then I realized that any answer I got could mean the end for me. TABULA knows its enemies. And TABULA shows no mercy.”

“Tell me what you did find out.”

He groaned in pain and tried to avoid her gaze.

“It all goes back many centuries,” he said helplessly. “Tabula Smaragdina Hermetis—I don’t suppose that means anything to you, does it?”

“Is it Latin?”

“Yes. And much more than that: words from the language of alchemy.”

She hissed quietly, and Trevini’s eyes almost imperceptibly widened. “Don’t try to fool me,” she said.

“You want connections. Very well, listen. This is not about strange hooded figures brewing bubbling potions over open fires. Alchemy is both a philosophy and a science. More of a science than anything else today. And the Tabula Smaragdina Hermetis is its beginning, its origin, the coded truth of the thrice great. The legendary emerald tablet of Hermes Trismegistos.”

Maybe she really ought to leave him to di Santis and put her mind to something more important.

“Alchemy is the mother of science,” he said, apparently mistaking the pool steps for a lecture hall. “When TABULA carries out experiments on Arcadians today, it is with reference to the father of alchemy—Hermes Trismegistos himself. No one knows who he really was. I have read a great deal about him, and his name unexpectedly turns up in the strangest sources. Some say that he occupied the throne of Thebes as its king. Others claim that he was a god of the shepherds of ancient Greece. Or the direct son of Adam. Then again, another opinion is that he never existed at all, and the name is only a pseudonym under which a whole group of scholars wrote their works. It’s said that Hermes Trismegistos penned more than thirty-five thousand books.”

“TABULA,” she whispered sharply. “That’s all that interests me.”

“You’ve even inherited your grandmother’s impatience.” Trevini managed a thin smile, but there was still terror in his eyes. “It seems that the emerald tablet of Hermes was discovered in a cave around the year 300 BC. It isn’t mentioned in writing until much later, and the first Latin translation comes from the Middle Ages. No one knows what language it was first written in—maybe Greek or Arabic.”

“What does it say?”

“Some say the texts are oracles; others describe them as instructions. There are fifteen verses in all, from the beginning of the universe to the key to eternal life. ‘That which is above is as that which is below, and that which is below is as that which is above.’ And: ‘Thus thou hast the glory of the whole world; therefore let all obscurity flee before thee.’ And finally: ‘Therefore am I called Hermes the Thrice Great, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world.’”

Trevini was now talking like a man in delirium, although he still gave Rosa the impression of being alert, if agitated. But whatever the words might mean, they told her that the attorney had thought much harder about the mysteries of TABULA than he had previously admitted. He knew the words on that damn tablet by heart.

“And you think that the organization takes its name from this emerald tablet?” she asked.

“Tabula Smaragdina Hermetis,” he said, for the third time.

“But who’s behind it? Who are these people?”

“Researchers from all over the world. Biochemists, experts in genetic technology, anthropologists—who knows? They must have unlimited financial means, and they think that they’re above the law.”

“You know what that sounds like, don’t you?”

He let out his breath with a scornful sound. “The Mafia is something quite different. It has never made any secret of its aims. It wanted, and still wants, nothing but power and money. But TABULA? Why are they misusing Arcadians for secret experiments? How do they know about the dynasties at all?” Trevini slowly shook his head. “Anyone who tries following that trail always comes up against a wall. Whether in libraries or on the internet—you never get far.”

“No connection with the Arcadian dynasties?”

“A few vague hints, that’s all.”

She succeeded in keeping her inner cold at bay as long as what he was saying drowned out her feelings. She would have rejected it all as nonsense, stupid stuff that had nothing to do with her or Alessandro. But weren’t there other answers lying far back in classical antiquity? What about the ancient statues on the seabed? The myth of the fall of Arcadia? Did the existence of this group go back as far as the history of Arcadia itself? Much of what Alessandro had told her about the origin of the dynasties was just as crazy as what Trevini was saying now. The Arcadian king Lycaon, who was turned into a cross between a man and an animal by angry Zeus, father of the gods. This Hermes Trismegistos sounded as if he came out of the same kind of myth.

“These hints—what do they say?” she asked.

“According to many sources Hermes, as I said, was the god of the Greek shepherds. His legendary magic staff, the caduceus, is an olive branch with two snakes twining around it. The myth says that this caduceus came from the land of Arcadia. Look it up. Try Google. What you find will confirm what I’m saying.”

“So?”

“The story goes that the god Hermes was given a staff, and he wandered in the lonely mountains of Arcadia with it. There he came upon two snakes locked in fierce combat. To settle their quarrel, he separated them with his staff, and they were reconciled. Since then the double snake has been the alchemical symbol for peace, new hope, new life. But in the legend of Hermes, the two snakes stand for the making of peace in Arcadia.”

“Which even if it were true all those thousands of years ago wouldn’t interest anyone today.” Rosa was trying not to turn back entirely into human form. If her snake gaze had some kind of hypnotic power that made Trevini talk, she wanted to hold it for as long as possible.

“There’s something else.” Trevini’s chin was trembling. “The staff made into a caduceus by the two snakes had been given to Hermes by another god. By the god of light—by Apollo. Apollonio.”

“So someone still knows the legend.”

“Because of the myth, snakes always had a special meaning for the ancient Arcadians, long before Zeus cursed Lycaon and his subjects. But did that still hold true after the transformation and death of the king? Costanza, at least, was convinced that far more respect was owed to the snakes than the other Arcadian dynasties pay them today. It seems that even in the lifetime of Lycaon, the Lamias wanted to seize power. It’s said that they toppled him from the throne of Arcadia in order to rule the land and the other dynasties themselves.”

“Which would explain why the other families hate the Alcantaras so much,” she commented. And then she began to see where all this was going. “Is that what Costanza was after? Did she want ancient history to repeat itself?” Rosa was gasping for air, because only now did she realize just how crazy her grandmother had been. “Did she stage the Hungry Man’s arrest so that she could fix his downfall and restore the old power of the Lamias?”

“At last you’re beginning to understand.”

“But that’s sick!”

“Every time a priest says Mass, he declares that the wine has turned into the blood of Christ. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims go on pilgrimage to Mecca every year. And how about the traditional tales of the Buddha and what he did? Good heavens, even scholars aren’t immune to that kind of thing when they speak of an author called Homer, when they can be fairly sure that no one of that name ever lived and wrote. Many people say that even Shakespeare is just an invention! People cling to myths, false and true alike. Why would the Arcadians be any exception? They’re all saying that the Hungry Man is about to return, as if he weren’t just a leader of Cosa Nostra but really the mythical being he’s named himself after.”

In pain, Trevini tried moving again. His face was distorted as he went on talking. Perhaps he guessed that this knowledge would die with him if he didn’t pass it on.

“Costanza believed in the truth behind the myths, and she was convinced of the Lamias’ claim to power. If she had to enter into a pact with a man like Pantaleone to get it, then she would accept that. Nothing could make her give up the idea that she, or one of her female descendants, would rise to power over all the dynasties again. As in the old days of ancient Arcadia.”

“What about the serum?” she asked. “Does that come from TABULA, like the furs?”

“Presumably.”

“I’ve had it analyzed. It was made using blood that has both human and animal characteristics. But we Arcadians are either one or the other, never both at once.”

“Hybrid blood,” he whispered.

She obviously knew less about that than everyone else. But what had she expected? She had entered the world of the Arcadians only four months ago—she had a lot to catch up on.

“Who are these hybrids?” she asked.

“Mongrels. A cross between humans and animals. Arcadians who didn’t complete their last transformation in one direction or the other.”

“Do you know any?”

“Me?” Trevini laughed bitterly. “All I know, I know from Costanza. And I worked out a few things for myself. I’ve told you everything, Rosa. We’ve reached the end.”

“Why did you send Valerie to me? That whole story about how she ran away at the airport—”

“It’s the truth. My men”—he corrected himself—“or rather the contessa’s men, now…they were supposed to put her on a flight to New York. But she got away from them. A clever little thing, your friend. Manipulative, too. Who knows, maybe we could all learn from her.”

“She was hardly in any state to stand on her own feet,” she objected. “Your interrogations didn’t pass over her without a trace, avvocato. How could she have run away from men like those bodyguards out there?”

There was genuine surprise in Trevini’s face. “She was in good health when she left here. A little weak, maybe, but in perfectly good health.”

Rosa’s eyes narrowed, and they were no longer the eyes of a snake. She had shifted back without being aware of it, feeling no more than a little tingling and itching. “When Valerie turned up at the palazzo yesterday, she was totally exhausted.”

Now that the spell of her snake gaze was broken, the malicious sparkle that made her so furious returned to Trevini’s smile. “Then either something happened to her on the way, or she’s been acting a part for your benefit.”

“How could she have—” But her words died away, because she already knew the answer. “Iole would never have let Valerie in if she hadn’t been in such poor condition. But as it was…”

“A cunning little thing; I said so. You didn’t simply leave her behind in the palazzo, did you? Maybe even without anyone to guard her?”

Rosa rubbed her face. She took her cell phone out of her pocket. It was switched off, and she had to type in the code. Then she called the number of the palazzo.

Trevini bent his head. “No one answering, I suppose?”

“Keep your mouth shut.”

“Let’s hope nothing has happened…”

Impatiently, she put the phone away again and turned to the steps.

“You’re not going to kill me?” he asked her retreating back, and he sounded genuinely shocked. No longer afraid. Only surprised.

“No.”

“But you can’t help yourself, Rosa. Don’t you feel that? Lamias are not merciful beings. Lamias never forgive. Costanza knew that.”

She went up the stairs, leaving him lying there helpless in the empty pool. “I will also make sure that di Santis doesn’t touch you. You’re not worth the trouble, avvocato.”

“Di Santis?” He laughed quietly. “She’s only a peon. Yours or mine, what does that matter? Listen to your nature, Rosa. It’s in your blood. Why resist it? You are what you are. And so you’ll sign my death sentence, if not now then later.”

She climbed up over the edge of the pool. “We’ll see about that.”

Trevini’s voice followed her, and now there was something in it that went beyond bitterness. “Your grandmother collected the skins of Arcadians. Your father—well, we’ve both seen what he’s capable of. And what does that say about you, Rosa? What does that make you?”

She closed the door behind her, but his words went on echoing in her mind. So she was glad when her cell phone rang once she was in the white-tiled corridor. With shaking fingers, she took it out. “Iole?”

“It’s me.”

“Alessandro! Thank God.”

“Where are you? I’ve tried calling a thousand times.” He sounded harassed. “Bad news. Michele isn’t in New York anymore. He flew to Italy yesterday.”

She stopped with the cell phone pressed to her ear.

“Michele is here, Rosa—in Sicily.”