Christopher Golden - The Chamber of Ten

“Monsieur?” the Frenchman says .

Volpe glances up, blinking. The Frenchman has just handed him the book but somehow he had nearly forgotten the man’s presence. Lizotte, his name is. Henri Lizotte. He is a thief of the highest order, though he fancies himself a collector of antiquities. He dresses like a dandy and travels with a small boy all in frills and colors like some kind of harlequin or jester. Lizotte refers to the child as his valet, but Volpe suspects the Frenchman of using him for a different service entirely .

“It is as I promised , oui?” the Frenchman asks, stroking his thin mustache .

He agrees that the book is, indeed, as promised, and for several seconds considers the option of simply killing the Frenchman. The right gesture to the guards that surrounded them would have ended Lizotte’s life, but the Frenchman must have known the peril into which he was placing himself by coming here, by agreeing to sell this book .

And how was he managing that feat? How could he part with it, when any fool could have felt its power?

With a flick of his wrist, Volpe gestures toward Lizotte. “Pay him. But get him out of here.”

Away from the book. Volpe is its master now .

The Frenchman seems content. He casts one final, wary glance back at the book as though afraid it might follow him out of the room, then he happily leaves with the household servants to receive his payment .

“Well?” asks Il Conte di Tonetti. “Is that The Book of the Nameless?”

Volpe nods, sizing up the Count. “It is. You’ve done well, Alviso.”

The man smiles. Il Conte Alviso Tonetti had been a member of the Council of Ten for less than a year, but had quickly become Volpe’s most valuable ally and spy among the Council. The man’s home, within view of the Rialto Bridge, might no longer be as opulent as it once was, and his family’s reputation might have been tarnished by scandal a generation ago, but that only made Il Conte a more determined ally. He had something to prove .

Of late it has not been unusual for Volpe and Il Conte Tonetti to meet in secret at the Count’s home. The ordinary council chambers are far too susceptible to spying, and the Chamber of Ten, below Petrarch’s library, also seemed to have its share of spies of late. The Doge—Pietro Aretino—had been one of them only two years ago. He had seemed content to obey Volpe’s secret edicts as a member of the Council of Ten. But once the prior Doge had died and the Council had voted him to replace the dead man, Aretino had grown jealous of Volpe’s influence .

He dabbles in magic now, and that is Zanco Volpe’s province .

Pietro Aretino wants to rule Venice in more than just name. And that, Volpe cannot allow. Worse still, in his dabbling, Aretino has discovered the presence of the dark power deep beneath the city. Like the gases of decay building up inside a bloated corpse, the evil of Akylis remains long after the ancient magician’s death. Already the evil has tainted Aretino, and the Doge has begun to tap into that power to transform himself into more than a dabbler .

Volpe cannot allow it. The man’s dark ambitions must be ended before they can blossom any further .

He glances around Tonetti’s music room, admiring the harp and the lute and the violin upon their stands, but appalled by the ridiculously ornate piano, which is painted in such a way that it appears almost to be dripping gold. The rear wall of the room is a tile mosaic done in the Moorish style, which clashes dreadfully with the paintings in the room’s entryway. Tonetti knows next to nothing about art, but he acquires it with vigor in order to impress other wealthy people. Still, it is a beautiful place, and each of the servants seems both obedient and happy—an unusual combination .

“How long, then?” Il Conte asks. “Now that you have the book, how long until we move against the Doge?”

“Days,” Volpe says. “It will take me time to master these spells. I only hope that he does not grow brash and attempt to kill me first.”

“He’ll never reach you,” Il Conte says. “You’re too well protected.”

Volpe thinks on this for a few moments, then narrows his eyes. “Are you certain only two of the Ten are his allies?”

Il Conte nods. “As certain as I can be. I believe the others are loyal, and those two—”

“Caiazzo and Soldagna.”

“Caiazzo and Soldagna,” Il Conte repeats, confirming. “They chafe at the bit. The Doge has promised them many things.”

“I have promises to give them as well,” Volpe says .

He smiles, again caressing the warm leather binding of the book, staring down at its featureless cover .

“Two days. The day after tomorrow, you and the others will turn on Caiazzo and Soldagna. Kill them in the Chamber. I want to show Aretino the evil fruit borne of his deceptions before he is banished from Venice forever. If the Council would not rebel against it, I would kill him as well, but they would turn on me in an instant, and that, I cannot afford. Without influence, I cannot control the city. Without control, I cannot protect her properly. No, the Council would never stand for me killing the Doge.”

Volpe raises the book and presses his lips against the warm leather, in a gentle kiss .

“Fortunately, they are not so precious about their fellow Council members.”

Geena blinked against the brightness of the sun, tasting blood on her lips. She felt hands on her arm and allowed herself to be helped up to a sitting position. The water bus swayed at the dock just a few feet away. The concerned man holding her arm—young, a student maybe—asked her several times if she was all right before she could focus enough to answer.

Her fingers flexed as though searching for the book they had held in the vision that had invaded her mind, spilling over from Nico, she felt sure. Where was he now? In an old mansion near the Rialto Bridge?

Maybe so.

And she had to find him. If these flashes were filling his thoughts constantly, she worried that Nico might well go mad.

If he wasn’t already.

Music played out in the street, a tinny melody that sounded like the sort of thing an organ grinder’s monkey would dance to. Nico blinked, then shook himself and took a deep breath. He glanced around the room and found himself sitting in a chair in a rich man’s kitchen.

Fuck. It had happened again.

“What now?” he asked aloud.

Instinctively his right hand reached out and touched the ancient book, which lay on the iron and glass kitchen table. Plants grew from hanging pots near one of the two tall windows. Some of them were herbs used for cooking, so whoever lived here took their culinary tasks very seriously.

A blink of his eyes and he saw it differently. A ghost-image lay over the whole room like some three-dimensional double-exposure photograph. He had been here before, a very long time ago. The building must have been cut up into luxury apartments, but once upon a time it had been the home of Count Alviso Tonetti. He sat now at a kitchen table in the 21st century, but his eyes saw Il Conte’s music room as it had looked in the dawning years of the 15th, complete with the garish piano.

The room where Zanco Volpe had received The Book of the Nameless from the Frenchman. The very place where he had first opened it and begun to peruse the dark power in its words.

Nico understood now. He had been overcome by the impulse to return here—a safe and private place in which he could delve into the book again, away from prying eyes, and where whatever darkness might slip out of those pages would be easier to control.