Chapter 1 - Santa Lucia Part 3

The Third of November Two Thousand and Eleven. Thursday.

'You are demons!' shouted Cabriatti, running for the door.

'Pretty much,' replied Lucia.

In her panther shape Lucia's sister Lisa was much faster than the unfit inventor. Cabriatti clattered into chairs and benches, unable to see where he was going. I don't know any Italian swear words but he probably said a couple as his head crashed to the ground. Lisa's eyesight wasn't troubled by the darkness and she found her target with a minimum of fuss. Cabriatti was still rolling on the floor, cursing, when the great cat pinned him down and roared menacingly in his face.

'Don't eat him yet, sister. He hasn't told us what we need to know.'

Lucia joined the panther as it lay down on Cabriatti's chest. 'The Chianti Lodestone, brother alchemist where is it?' she asked.

With little to see in the gloom, Cabriatti had his eyes closed as he gathered what composure he could. He whispered a brief prayer and then answered. 'At the rear of the workshop, next to the great hourglass, there is a locked casket. The Lodestone is within.'

Lucia had been scratching her sister's ear, expecting the need for a little feline persuasion to get Cabriatti to answer. Lisa gave a yowl as Lucia roughly pulled her hand away in surprise.

'So swift an answer? Surely this has to be a trick?'

'No trick,' replied Cabriatti. 'There is a cabinet directly above the casket. The key to the lock is concealed there. I forget exactly where – inside a jug or a jar or somesuch. It shouldn't take long to find.'

The would-be saint clicked her fingers and her hand burst into flames of an unnatural deep red. I say 'unnatural' – the fact that her hand didn't get burned was a dead give away that sorcery was involved. She used the flame as a torch, the light from it glinting in the big cat's eyes as she looked for the casket. She found first the giant hourglass and then there, next to it as Cabriatti had said, a small wooden casket with a simple lock on its front. It didn't look very substantial – it wouldn't be much effort simply to prise it open. But Lucia was nothing if not a practical demon and there was no point in wasting time or spells if an obvious solution was at hand. She found the key inside a jar of dried beetles and promptly used it to open the casket.

The Lodestone was a small wooden cubic frame the size of – well, the way Cabriatti described it, a bit bigger than a Rubik's Cube, with a lump of metal the shape of a double headed arrow in its middle attached to each of the cube's eight corners by a piece of ordinary twine. The double-arrow hung freely so's it could turn toward whatever it was supposed to point to, I guess.

'Not much to look at, is it?' chimed in Cabriatti, breaking through the silence that had greeted the anti-climax of the Lodestone's discovery. He was right. The wooden frame was all chipped and battered, the twine frayed and the metal of the arrow rusted. I'm well up on artefacts and stuff from all sorts of video and role playing games and I know that often magical bits and bobs will appear unassuming in order to disguise the magnitude of their power, but this was just tatty. It could have been knocked up on the craft table at primary school.

With the cube in one hand, Lucia brought the flames of her other hand in close to get a better look.

'There it is,' she announced. 'The mark of the flower and sword, signature of the alchemist who created it. This is the Chianti Lodestone.'

'As promised. Now you might as well get kitty here to see me off and be on your way. 'There's nothing else doing.' Cabriatti looked as if he was going to try and stroke Lisa but a well-timed screech from her told him what she thought of that idea.

'Oh you'll end up as cat food yet,' promised Lucia. 'After you tell me how to get this thing to work.'

'What do you mean “get this thing to work”?' said Cabriatti, clearly knowing exactly what Lucia meant.

'I'm sorry to keep you waiting, Lisa,' said Lucia. 'I suppose it wouldn't matter too much if you helped yourself to one of his fingers as an antipasto.'

'You're making a mistake!' squawked Cabriatti, suddenly not sounding quite so casual.

'I don't think so,' replied Lucia. 'Lisa's hungry and you're not being helpful -'

'I mean about the Lodestone! I meant it when I said it doesn't work! It's never worked. It's only value is historical. It's a museum piece, it belongs to a time when there were genuine alchemists.'

'Genuine?' Doubt had crept into Lucia's voice.

'Look around this room. This isn't an alchemist's den, it's a workshop. I'm an inventor. In my younger days I may have had pretensions of being an alchemist. So did many of my contemporaries. We'd challenge each other to invent something to rival the transmutations the mystics of old claimed to have mastered. But our wonders were purely mechanical. We'd build machines, fantastic machines capable of things no-one thought possible: flight, personal transparency and de- and re-solidification of matter. We were the alchemists of the modern age and each year an award was made to the most brilliant among us in recognition of their achievements. With that award came a trophy – an precious object from the time of the true alchemists.'

Lucia signalled for Lisa to let her captive up then sneered at Cabriatti. 'Are you telling me that this -' she proffered the cube, '- is nothing more than an ornament, a prize for boys playing at being giants?'

'The winner was called “The Custodian of the Lodestone”,' continued Cabriatti, standing and dusting himself down. 'There were 33 recipients of the award, I was the last. Even in this time of enlightenment the practice of science or alchemy is not always understood. We scattered across the world and rarely hear of each other's lives. It's hard enough trying to make a life and a living for ourselves.'

'True enough “brother alchemist”.' Lucia held her burning hand in front of Cabriatti's face and blew it out, the phantom flames dancing uncomfortably close his nose before dissipating without heat. 'I'd hate to think what my people in the village would say if they knew the true nature of your infernal work.'

Now it was Cabriatti's turn to feel unsure. 'My inventions may seem complicated to the simpler among them, but they'll find nothing unGodly here. I have nothing to fear – from them at least.'

Lucia smiled, her white teeth cutting through the darkness. 'Even if a saint – the mother of their village nonetheless – told them otherwise? One word from me and even the most open minded among them will demand to burn you as a heretic.'

'Oh don't sulk. Just because there's nothing for you here now.' Cabriatti paused. 'What did you need the Lodestone for anyway?'

It was as if Lucia had been waiting for somebody to ask.

'My sister and I are not without ambition. Our own particular corner of Hell gets more crowded as each day goes by. Various powers vying for territory and influence, it's very difficult for an honest demon to make their mark.'

'Then why not make a proper go of it as saints,' suggested Cabriatti. 'Think of all the good you did yesterday. You talked of popularity. Not my bag, but you seem to enjoy it. You could have power and influence here on Earth – by helping people.'

Have you ever heard a cat laugh? It's a really disturbing sound, even for a demon apparently because Lucia told her sister to shut up.

'Oh, that was a means to an end to get to you and your useless Lodestone. All tricks and flummery, the effects will wear off before the next dawn.'

'Then you are demons. That's unspeakably cruel.'

'That's an amusement. We want something more. We want to see the Tabula Rasa Scrolls. We want to make over the whole world from...' she stroked her sister's fur, 'scratch.'

'Ah, now they are real,' admitted Cabriatti. 'Nobody knows where in the Three Worlds they are, but they're most definitely real. I suppose if the Chianti Lodestone had been real that would have been just the thing to help you find them. A chance to wipe the slate of creation clean and start all over again? You're not only cruel, you're insane.'

'We are patient. If you cannot give us the means to find the scrolls then someone else will. This has been hundreds of years in the planning, if it takes another hundred more it will be time well spent. All of reality will be ours to shape.'

Lisa gave an impatient growl.

'I agree, sister,' said Lucia. 'You have waited long enough. Enjoy your feast.' The massive black beast crouched, readying itself for the killer pounce.

'Three... two... one...' Cabriatti quietly counted down what Lucia thought were the last seconds of his life. Instead there was a pulse of light, like an old-fashioned flash gun going off. The sisters, both human and cat, howled with surprise. The cube of the Lodestone fell the the floor. It was this bizarre cat's cradle that had been the source of the flash, the metal at its heart still glowing slightly like the filament in a light bulb.

Lucia had been temporarily blinded. When her sight returned she was greeted by an unsettling sight. Her sister, the cat Lisa, seemed to be shrinking.

'What have you done?' demanded Lucia.

'I've lied,' said Cabriatti. 'You know, for demons you're very trusting.' He gestured toward the cube. 'That is the genuine Chianti Lodestone. A product of ancient alchemy and still possessing the power of transmutation today.'

By now Lisa had transformed from a hulking beast of the jungle into a small domestic cat. Still sleek and black, but nothing quite as intimidating as her earlier form.

'Throwing transformation spells about near an alchemist's toy? Not a good idea,' said Cabriatti. 'It couldn't help but absorb some of the magic you used. But without someone controlling it, it had to release that power before too long. Your sister's already feeling the effects of that. It won't be long before you do too.'

'Nonsense!' declared Lucia. 'It'll take more than some tarted up gunpowder to affect miaow.'

'Use the Tabula Rasa scrolls?' Cabriatti tutted. 'I'm sorry ladies, even if your plan had next to no chance of working it's not worth taking the chance. You had to be stopped.'

Now, Lucia too was shrinking. And fur, black and glistening in the odd moonbeam that penetrated the workshop, started to crawl over her skin. The process was quicker than it had been with her sister, and in no time at all she had her own full set of whiskers, a tail and claws. But for a few seconds she still had something human left – her voice. There was only a second before it gave out for her to utter one final word: 'hide.'

Cabriatti didn't seem quite so intimidated when confronted with two, small black cats. He picked up a nearby broom and waved it threateningly at them.

'You're still demons, still immortal and probably indestructible. There's no easy way of getting rid of you so this should at least keep you out of harm's way. Now, scat cats!' To a chorus of yowls and screeches, Cabriatti took his broom to the cats and chased them both out of his workshop. They screamed and hissed their way into the night.

The next few days in Santa Lucia in Chianti would be hellish as the effects of the false saint's miracles wore off. Cabriatti made the decision then that he would confine himself to his tower and avoid any contact with the consequences of the demons' meddling. He was content in the knowledge that he had done enough to foil their wicked plans – let somebody else do the tidying up afterwards. All that was left for Cabriatti to do now was to secure the Lodestone once again.

Yes, the Lodestone.

Cabriatti scratched his head. Exactly where had he put it?


More soonliest.