City of Masks by Mary Hoffman Read Free Book Online Page B

energy coursing through him.
    Rodolfo was smiling. ‘Tell me about yourself and your life in the other world.’
    ‘You don’t know then?’ asked Lucien, who had assumed Rodolfo must be a powerful all-knowing sort of magician.
    ‘Only where you must have come from and approximately when,’ Rodolfo answered. ‘Nothing about you personally, not even your name.’
    ‘Lucien,’ said Lucien. ‘But it seems to be Luciano here. At least that’s what I told the Duchessa.’
    ‘Then Luciano it had better be,’ said Rodolfo gravely, with just a hint of a smile.
    ‘I don’t know what you want to know,’ said Lucien. ‘In my real life, I’ve been very ill. I’m having some treatment which might eventually cure me but in the meantime it makes me feel a lot worse. I feel wonderful here, though. Nothing wrong with me at all.’
    Rodolfo was leaning forward, listening carefully to every word. He spent the next hour questioning Lucien about every detail of his ordinary life, even quite trivial things like what his family ate at mealtimes and where they did their shopping. His dark eyes glittered at Lucien’s descriptions of quite mundane things, like supermarkets, the Underground, football matches. Even pizza, which Lucien assumed he would know all about, caused Rodolfo’s brow to wrinkle in puzzlement.
    ‘A round flat bread with cooked tomatoes and cheese on top?’ he asked. ‘Are you sure?’
    Lucien smiled. ‘Or chicken tikka, or Christmas dinner, or even haggis, for all I know. Anything goes these days.’
    Rodolfo looked blank. ‘We do not have these things you mention in Talia. Are they good to eat?’
    ‘Yes – some of them – but not necessarily on a pizza,’ said Lucien.
    Rodolfo leaned back in his chair and stretched, cracking his knuckles.
    ‘Now it’s your turn,’ said Lucien. ‘Tell me about Bellezza, about Talia.’
    ‘What do you want to know?’
    ‘Everything.’ Lucien gestured around him. ‘I don’t understand any of it. I mean, why am I here and why don’t I have a shadow and why were you expecting someone like me?’
    Rodolfo got up and walked over to the stone parapet. He looked out over the silver roof of the cathedral. Then he turned and gazed at Lucien.
    ‘To answer your questions, I have to start further back. Some time ago, a traveller came from your world to mine. It was hundreds of years ago in your time, though not in mine. He was the first to discover the secret, the first member of the brotherhood I belong to. He was the first Stravagante.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘A wanderer. For us, a wanderer between worlds. He was a powerful scientist from your country. You may have heard of him. His name was William Dethridge.’ Rodolfo paused and looked hopefully at Lucien, who just shook his head.
    ‘Ever since Doctor Dethridge made that first journey,’ Rodolfo continued, ‘there have been Stravaganti working on the principles by which such journeys are made. It is difficult work and sometimes dangerous. As time has gone by, we have discovered the risks of crossing from one side to the other.’
    ‘Like in Star Trek ,’ said Lucien, and saw immediately he was going to have to explain himself. ‘It’s a TV programme about the future. They mustn’t tamper with the time/space continuum or there are terrible consequences. And they mustn’t interfere with alien cultures. That’s the Prime Directive.’
    ‘I do not understand most of that,’ said Rodolfo slowly, ‘but the spirit sounds right. Every journey between your world and ours is fraught with hazards and is not to be undertaken lightly. It can be done only by those who have studied the science of stravagation and familiarized themselves with its pitfalls and restraints.’
    ‘Hang on,’ said Lucien. ‘I haven’t done any of that. I just held the book and thought about the city. Only the first time it wasn’t Bellezza. I was thinking about Venice, which I think is like Bellezza in my world.’
    ‘Ven-iss,’