Pierrot's Song

Chapter 6 - Echoes Underground-3

‘I turned him down, of course.’ Vincenzo laughed, his hearty guffaw out of place in their terrible surroundings. ‘I have never wanted to be anyone’s pawn.’

Mina rose and walked to the door of the cell, peering through the small barred hole. As much as she could glimpse of the hallway showed her it was empty. She spun back. ‘Do you know who the Archiaris asked to be Harlequin after that?’

Vincenzo shook his head.

‘Roberto. Roberto is the new Harlequin.’

Vincenzo buried his head in his hands. ‘That’s bad news,’ he murmured, then lifted his head again. ‘Because the other thing Tito offered me, the benefit of the job, he called it, was long life.’

‘What?’

‘If I let Mourini in, he said, I would live longer than normal, stay young and healthy.’ He gestured at his broken body. ‘Almost seems like a good choice now.’

Mina began pacing. A dark thought took form in her mind. ‘But … but all this happened before you joined the Gazini troupe, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s not possible. It doesn’t make sense. Uberto was still Harlequin then. Mourini was still … part of him … until later. I saw when Mourini left him. I was there. What you’re saying could only be true if …’

Their eyes met across the room.

‘… if Mourini can control more than one Harlequin,’ Vincenzo finished.

Mina’s knees crumpled and she slid to the floor. ‘What if Mourini’s behind it all?’ she whispered.

Before Vincenzo could answer, the cell door slid open with a deep groan. A couple of guards entered and strode over to Vincenzo, forcing him to a standing position and marching him to the door. They almost had to carry him because his legs would not take his weight.

‘Where are you taking me?’ he demanded, almost sounding like his old self.

‘The Council of Muses needs to have a talk to you about Arcani,’ one of the guards answered, his voice expressionless.

‘No!’ Mina, still sitting, grabbed the guard’s leg. ‘You can’t. Don’t do that to him!’

With a jerk, the guard shook her off his leg and the two men half dragged, half walked Vincenzo out. He looked back over his shoulder and managed a few last words before he was gone.

‘You, Mina. It has to be you who makes it right.’

His words fell on her heart like an iron weight.

Tears ran down Mina’s cheeks as she thought about everything that had happened in the wake of all her discoveries. She had been so confident what others did was wrong and what she did was right. Yet now Uberto was frail, maybe even dying, he and Mama Tina had been forced to go into hiding, Dario’s mind was broken, Vincenzo was likely about to suffer the same fate, and she had no doubt something terrible lay in store for everyone at Jal’s house if it had not already happened. All because of her. Because of her fear, and her arrogance.

‘But what is right?’ she whispered into the empty cell.

‘Well now, what an extraordinarily good question,’ a cheerful voice responded, and Roberto sprang into the room, fully clad in his Harlequin outfit, mask perched on the top of his head. ‘Nearly as good as “what is truth?”, eh Mina? And we both know you and I would answer that one differently.’

Mina cursed inwardly as she realised the door had stood open after Vincenzo’s departure while she berated herself for her failures. Would she have had time to get away? Angered, apparently, by her lack of response, Roberto strode over and seized her by the chin, squeezing her cheeks so her lips puckered.

‘This is the last time you’ll be asked nicely,’ he hissed. ‘Mourini will be here in a minute, and he’s tired of you turning him down. If you tell him no this time, I believe he has a little trick up his sleeve. He hasn’t had to use it in such a long time, but I’m sure he’ll remember. It was the first thing he ever learned to do in Tarya. The one thing that was his, you could say.’

He released Mina and she stumbled back, away from him.

‘Mourini’s coming here?’ Finally she would get to see him face to face and know exactly what she was up against.

Roberto burst out laughing. With a flourish he indicated the door. Nothing happened.

‘Any moment now,’ he murmured, and gestured to the door again. Still no one appeared. Mina looked from him to the door, then back at him again. Could she do it? He was off to one side. If she was quick …

She bolted for the door. Roberto cursed and reached for her. She slipped past his fingers and had just reached the doorway when a figure blocked her way. A man in a diamond-paned suit, his face covered by Harlequin’s long-nosed mask. Mina backed into the cell to the mocking sound of Roberto’s laughter. She refused to be cowed though.

‘We finally meet, Mourini.’

The Harlequin glanced at Roberto, then strode into the cell. Another Harlequin appeared in the doorway, mask in place.

‘What …?’ Mina gasped. This one took his place beside the first and another entered, then another, and another. Before she could move at all, the room had filled. Mina counted ten Harlequins, including Roberto, in two staggered lines. Harlequins in the second line filled the gaps of the first line, forming an impenetrable barricade before the open door.

‘Which of you is …’

Mina’s voice died as she realised the truth she had glimpsed minutes before, during her conversation with Vincenzo. She could sense him. She could see him in the flashing eyes behind the anonymous masks.

‘You all are. Mourini is part of all of you.’

Roberto slid his mask down onto his face and took his place at the centre of the front line. One of the anonymous Harlequins began speaking. ‘Clever girl. Such a young thing to be such a threat to everything I have spent centuries building.’

Another spoke, his voice continuing so seamlessly it could have been the same person speaking. ‘I began the players for one reason, and one alone. Every person is born with a gift. For some it is a small thing, simple. Perhaps baking, or making things grow. For others it can be …’

Another Harlequin took over without a break. ‘… something that changes the world, like the art of the greatest artisans. All these gifts reside in the soul. They are a piece of Tarya made flesh.’

‘And I discovered,’ continued one of the Harlequins in the back row, ‘my gift was to take these other gifts into myself, by taking the dreams that fuelled them: the dreams that gave people the courage to make them real. Dreams that are bound to them by such tenuous, fragile silver threads …’

‘… they are easy to break,’ said another, chuckling.

‘But gifts are meant to be shared,’ came a new voice, which sounded oddly like all the others. ‘I’m selfish by nature, so it was not my natural inclination, but I made the amazing discovery that if I shared particular gifts, the energy I got back gave me a certain … longevity.’

Mina recalled Uberto, in his Harlequin guise, standing in the wings during a performance, breathing deeply of the sparkling, swirling air that rose unchecked from the audience. Their wonder, adoration, and gratitude. Another voice broke her vision.

‘The more dreams I had, and the more I drew from audiences, the stronger I grew.’

‘So I founded more player troupes.’

‘You got greedy,’ Mina said.

‘I needed it. I could slow the ageing process with this energy, but I couldn’t stop it,’ another Harlequin chimed in.

Mina’s head was starting to spin from the fetid air and the strangeness of one voice coming from many mouths. The next Harlequin to speak was Roberto.

‘Then you got in the way. You restore people’s dreams. Robbing me of what I need.’ He took a step forward and grabbed Mina by the wrist, pulling her in close. ‘Such delicious irony, because I’ve been searching for someone like you my whole life. And trust me Mina, it’s been a long life.’

‘Why me? What do you want from me?’

He lifted his mask off his face, backed her up to the wall and leaned in, pinning her wrists against the cold stone. The other Harlequins swept forward silently, forming a menacing arc around them.

‘Let me tell you how this works,’ he whispered, his lips brushing her ear. ‘I discovered when I was very young—so young!—I could twine my gold thread with another. How I learned of this gift is a tale for another time. I had only minor talents myself, but when I twined myself with others, their talent was part of me. And when they used it—when they gave their talents to the world—what they received back from their audience came to me as well. They couldn’t always taste it. But I could.’

He licked his lips. ‘You can’t imagine how delicious it was. Stolen glory.’ His fingers wrapped more tightly around her wrists and he raised Mina’s hands above her head, pushing his body against hers. ‘When I saw how adored you were at the festival, I wanted that for myself. Imagine the energy that would flow from such adoration!’

Mina turned her head away and struggled against his grip. His laugh echoed through the room. ‘And of course, our very souls would be entwined.’ He drew her hands down to her chest, palms together, then forced them to open outward in the Creator’s greeting. ‘Storytellers are so loved.’

Mina met his gaze with fire in her eyes. ‘If I did what you want, would you stop hurting dreamers and taking over Harlequins?’

‘I would have no need. Many people would no longer be harmed.’

Mina shoved him away from her. Roberto stepped back, sliding his mask down once more, and the other Harlequins fell in beside him again in two lines.

‘You swear?’

A wolfish grin slid across all ten faces. With a hungry breath, every one of them took a step toward Mina at the same time.

‘What about the gold threads?’ she demanded.

With a sigh, the Harlequins froze in place. They appeared to be thinking. Then they spoke as one.

‘The gold threads are inconsequential. It is only the silver that matters.’

‘That’s not true,’ Mina snapped. ‘Without them the players wouldn’t be able to create characters so well.’

‘Creating characters was a lucky side effect.’

Mina’s eyes flared. ‘What about the Council? Why are they breaking threads? Surely they’re not doing what you are too?’

All ten Harlequins burst out laughing at once, a mad orchestra of mirth. She had no idea who spoke next.

‘I rule the Council. I have done for many years. The Council breaks the gold because I tell them to.’

Mina pushed that thought away. She had too many other questions that needed answers. ‘But why? You say they’re inconsequential, but if you were really getting everything you needed from the silver, why would you have even bothered with the gold in the first place?’

‘Because,’ Roberto’s Harlequin said with a sneer, ‘artisans are like actors. Those who produce beautiful work receive recognition and admiration. Which should be mine.’

‘That’s crazy! You’re telling me you destroy people’s lives out of jealousy?’

‘As do many.’ Roberto shrugged.

‘You can’t seriously expect to have all the admiration for yourself.’

One of the Harlequins in the second row turned and left the room. The others stared at Mina silently until his return. In his hand was the gold mask Jal had rescued from his jeweller friend. Mina’s heart plummeted at the sight of it. Jal and the others were supposed to be protecting it. What price had they paid that it was now in Mourini’s hands?

All the Harlequins spoke together, their voices flat and eerie in the semi-dark. As words tumbled from first one, then another in rapid sequence, they all took small steps toward Mina, moving with perfect synchronisation.

‘I made this for you, Mina. I have seen what you can do. The time of the players is at an end. You will tell your wonderful stories from the divina here in the palace, and people will come from everywhere to hear them. I will twine your gold thread with mine, and place part of both in this mask, and you will wear it whenever you tell your tales. Then I will be with you, inside you. All that magnificent life energy brought to you by those eager to hear you tell your tales will be mine.’

Mina was backed against the wall again, with barely room to breathe as the ten Harlequins crowded her, their eyes black and their teeth bared.

‘If I refuse?’

Roberto was the only one who answered. ‘Then I will destroy everyone who is close to you. Do you know what happens when someone dies with their golden thread broken?’

Mina realised she was trembling. Exhaustion and fear were finally taking their toll. She shook her head.

‘The thread is their link to Tarya. Without it, they are lost forever, adrift and separated from the heavenly realms. Do you want to be responsible for doing that to the ones you love?’

Mina held his gaze as long as she could, but the weight of everything she had learned and experienced finally overwhelmed her and she crumpled to the floor, her head bowed. She had seen the souls trapped in the River, but she hadn’t wondered what might happen to them if their bodies died, focused as she was on restoring them to those bodies. Was Roberto lying or could this be the truth? After all, she had been able to see Uncle Tonio after he died. Was that because he was trapped on this side of the border separating the human and heavenly aspects of Tarya?

Roberto crouched beside her, grasping her hair and twisting her face to his. ‘Well, Mina?’

‘No,’ she said.

Roberto slid his Harlequin mask off his face, then, still grasping her hair, leaned in and gave Mina a deep, thrusting kiss. Finally he pulled away. ‘Good girl.’

The other Harlequins were already filing out, though nothing had been spoken. One took the torch from the wall. Roberto followed the others, pulling the cell door closed behind him. As it scraped across the stones it sounded as though it caught on something metallic, causing a weird scream to pierce the room. Light flickered in the hallway briefly, then was gone.

Tears streamed down Mina’s face. She hugged herself against the blackness and the cold and wished she knew where her friends were and whether they were safe.