Ars Magica Read online

For a moment he went blind. He clutched at air, stone, sanity. Slowly the light came back. The sweet madness was gone: the splendor that had been his master’s magic. He leaned against the tomb and remembered how to think. “God in heaven! I’ve always known what he is, but to feel it...” He drew a steadying breath. “It’s too much for the likes of me.”

  The Jinniyah spoke above him, clear and cold. “When you have finished babbling, you might see fit to tell me what you intend to do with me.”

  “Take you back to Master Gerbert.”

  “Under Arnulf’s nose?”

  “What do you think I just did?”

  “You did nothing. I found us a hiding place in which he may not think to search.”

  The last of Richer’s drunkenness withered and died. “He knows what you are.”

  “He has been using me as my geas will allow.”

  “Dear God.” Richer lowered his head into his hands. “He’ll raise heaven and hell to get you back.”

  “He will. But perhaps,” she said, “not for a while. The monk will remember nothing but a moment’s confusion, and nothing that should not be there — and everything that should. We have perhaps a day and a night before the magic fades: before Arnulf sees that his table is empty. Unless, of course, he questions his oracle. My power falls short of illusions that speak when spoken to.”

  “Then let’s pray he doesn’t.”

  “Amen to that,” said the Jinniyah, which widened his eyes. She laughed briefly. “What, did you think I’m a demon? Iblis is my forefather, I confess it, but my family has made amends. I was a good Muslim before I fell among the infidels.”

  Richer crossed himself without thinking, which made her laugh again. He scowled at her. “How do I know you haven’t betrayed us all?”

  “I told him nothing beyond yes or no, and those when he invoked my geas. I must prophesy. Nothing and no one has ordained that I must also tell what I am and what I bear.”

  “You’re free enough with me.”

  “I choose to be.”

  Richer drew a long sigh. He knew he should be more wary, but he believed her. That was one of his magics, to know truth from falsehood. It was pleasure like pain, to have it back again.

  He shook himself. He was dallying, and the day was running on. “I have to find a place to hide you while I ready our escape. If you hadn’t led me here — ”

  “Here is safe,” she said. “Under the altar cloth is a loose stone. Lift it out.”

  There was indeed, and behind it a space, a hollow in the great carved table. Perhaps it had been meant for a relic which had never come; perhaps some forgotten priest or builder had meant it for a hiding place.

  Richer hesitated. “This feels like sacrilege.”

  “If I can bear it, surely the altar can.”

  Slowly Richer set the image in the niche. It was a close fit. He blessed bronze and stone alike, at which the Jinniyah mercifully kept silent. He could not bring himself to cover her face with the stone.

  “Let be,” she said. “The cloth will cover me.”

  He hid the stone behind the tomb, and stood with the cloth in his hand, staring at the glimmer of bronze. “Are you sure you’ll be safe here?”

  “As safe as I can ever be.” That was hardly comforting. “Go now, look to our escape.”

  Richer let the cloth fell, smoothed it carefully. He was shakier now than he had been in Arnulf s chamber. Reaction, some of it, and fear that he had missed some crucial and damning detail.

  “God,” he said to the altar. “God, guard us both.”

  “Amen,” said the voice of air and bronze.

  13.

  For a moment as the day waned, Gerbert dreamed that he had his magic back again. It was glorious; it was intoxicating. Then it was gone. The world was all the darker in its wake, his madness all the stronger. If his courage could have faltered, now it was unshakable. He would do this. He would win back what Arnulf had taken away.

  When compline was sung, Gerbert was ready. He had sent his servants away; the house was silent, empty but for the murmur of the wind that had risen with the evening. He shuttered the largest chamber against it, and cleared the space of encumbrances: the table on its trestles, the benches, the cabinet in which reposed his treasure of linen and plate. That was no easy labor for a man on the far side of sickness, and fasting besides. He had to pause after, sweating, battling darkness that came and went.

  At last it left him. He sent fear after it, and guilt. His hand on the knife’s hilt as he drew the circle of power was perfectly steady, his voice unwavering in the words which he must say. Words quite like them sealed wards major in workings of the high magic; but these wrought patterns that needed no sealing of power. Their cadences lulled him. He firmed his will to remain their master. It was like singing in choir. A hesitation, a stumble, and all the patterns would collapse.

  Yet as it lengthened, it took on its own power. It shaped itself; it twisted, seeking escape from his will.

  The circle closed, sealed with the signs of the elements: earth and water, fire and air. Earth from consecrated ground, water of baptism, fire burning atop a white candle, air embodied in sheerest silk. Gerbert stood within, in the center, with his book and his athame and his parchment, his lighted candle and his bowl of virgin silver and his box of costly essences. One by one he set them in the bowl and kindled them. As the first burned, he spread his parchment on the floor. The second purified his blade. The third — myrrh, that was for mortality — saw the blood spring red into the bowl, quenching the flame, raising a strong sweet smoke. He dipped his quill in it and began to write. Prayer, invocation, prayer. Word by word in ink that was the stuff of life. All his being centered on that shaping: each letter clear, distinct, begetting its rightful successor.

  And then there were no more. He knew a mighty sadness, as at a line of kings that had ended in silence and the grave. Almost he saw their faces, mortal blood and mortal bone.

  Ink, parchment, crabbed and ancient words.

  What the hand had written, the tongue encompassed. His voice was strong enough to startle him, fine trained cantor’s voice that rang as in vast and empty spaces.

  “By the body of Christ, by the blood of the Crucified, by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, by the great names, the mighty names, the names of the Lord of lords, Adonai, Jehovah, Tetragrammaton, Hagios, Ischyros, Athanatos, Adonai, Adonai...”

  Thunder gathered. The hairs of his body rose and trembled. Sweat sprang burning cold. But his voice was free of all of it, borne with will and hand and heart, in white fire of power.

  “Come, thou spirit of air and darkness, power of night, power of endless silences, thou whom I name in the name that is God’s; come to me in shape that is fair to mortal eyes; come swift, come silent, come all obedient to my command. Bring thou no ally, bear thou no malice, lest the Angel of the Sword smite thee down to deepest hell. Come!” And he spoke the name that in itself was power, the name which he had chosen out of all that he had learned only that he might forget; and when it was spoken it was fled, forgotten truly, gone, save for an empty word in blood upon a parchment.

  And then was silence. Gerbert stood in the circle in the reek of drugged smoke, and all about was only stillness. Deep in his center, he knew the dawning of despair.

  Shadow stirred. He dared not move, even to stare, lest it be empty hope. Even when the whisper came, softer than wind in leaves, he stood still. “What would you, mage? I wait upon your will.”

  He shuddered — even he, whose power had mastered mightier spirits than this. Then he had had power. Now he had only words.

  They were enough. “Show yourself to me,” he said.

  The shadow drew closer. He saw eyes: a shadow and a gleam. Shape drew itself below them. Face, body, no garment but a cloak of dark and lustrous hair. No sweeter body had ever been. Dark face, white smile, eyes that for a moment — for a piercing moment —

  Gerbert cried aloud. “You are not she!”

  “I could
be,” the spirit said in her own remembered voice. Even yet it could wound him to the heart.

  “You will not.” Gerbert was cold in the memory of grief, his mind clear at last and almost too late. “Put off that shape, in God’s name, or I will flay you with whips of fire.”

  The spirit laughed, mocking, but it blurred and shrank. This semblance too he knew, with a small cold shock: the ancient monk who had accused him of allowing Adalberon to die. Had this being known even then that he would summon it? Or was this another of its mockeries?

  If the spirit had hoped to betray him further into weakness, it was disappointed. He faced it steadily. “So, then,” he said. “I did not dream that other meeting.”

  “Perhaps you did,” the spirit said. “Perhaps I am no demon at all, but the conjuring of your own mad brain.”

  “What care I, if only you obey me?” Gerbert raised the athame. The spirit flinched from the gleam of it. “Hear me now, by the bonds which I have laid upon you. Fulfill this charge for which I have summoned you. Bring to me that which is mine, whole and complete, and do not tarry, nor seek to deceive me.”

  The spirit wavered like smoke in a gale. “I cannot.”

  “You will.”

  “I cannot,” the spirit repeated. If it laughed behind its eyes, still its fear was real enough. “It is gone; taken where I cannot touch it.”

  Gerbert rose up in wrath. “How dare you lie to me?”

  Before the fear now was anger. “I am not the Liar’s get. I speak truth, O son of Eve. The thing you seek is beyond my power to take.”

  “Where?”

  The withered face grew crafty. “What will you pay for the knowledge?”

  “What need I pay? You are bound until I free you.”

  “Bound only to the task for which you summoned me. That, I cannot fulfill. I do no more without due payment. It is the law, O my master.”

  Gerbert’s teeth clicked together. Of all the chances which might befall the working, this was one which he had never thought to see. That the Jinniyah should be gone. That the spirit would not obey him. It watched him warily, but its fear had faded. A long pale tongue flicked over its lips. No demon, that one, not precisely, but no angel, either. Its kind craved mortal blood, the rich and transient sweetness of fleshly life. He felt the bonds weakening; on the parchment at his feet, the letters of blood had begun to fade. Words alone could not hold that will so long or so fruitlessly.

  Darkness unfolded in Gerbert’s mind. Anger had begotten it. Madness fed it. He smiled slowly; and the spirit quivered. Even it could fear him still, powerless though his folly had left him. “Suppose,” he said, “that I give you leave to harry a man at your will. Will you tell me where my servant has gone?”

  “I may harry him?” the spirit asked. “You set no limits on it?”

  “This only: that you harm no other, save only him. He is a traitor, a breaker of his most sacred word. He is yours by my gift, if you tell me what I would know.”

  “Bold,” said the spirit, “to offer another’s soul and not your own.”

  Gerbert’s anger sent the spirit reeling back. “His soul is no part of it! I give you his body and his will. All else belongs to God alone.”

  “You are proud,” said the spirit. “Have a care, or your people will make a prince of you.”

  “An archbishop will suffice.” The athame shaped the sign of the cross. “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit: tell me what I would know!”

  “For the harrying of an archbishop,” said the spirit, “I do more. See where your magic lies.”

  Gerbert’s eyes were full of it; his soul wept to be apart from it. He reached in will-less yearning.

  The vision frayed and scattered. His circle was broken, his foot across its border. The spirit’s laughter filled his reeling brain. “Go!” he shrieked at it. “Begone!”

  oOo

  Gerbert stumbled bruisingly to his knees. The spirit was gone. He had not dismissed it properly. He had railed at it like a harridan. And the bargain he had struck with it...

  His mind eluded that clarity, lest it stop him. He would do what he would do. This, first: the scouring of the chamber with clean smoke and pure water. The clearing away of the elements of the spell. The parchment was tattered as if with great age and hard use, the letters of blood faded to shadows. When he touched it, it crumbled, and with it the spirit’s name. The name without which he could not master it.

  When he had his magic back, it would not matter. He laid the athame with the grimoire in a box, shivering a little as the hilt left his hand. For a moment it seemed to cling, to beg him to keep it with him. He closed the lid upon it and thrust the box into the breast of his habit.

  Discipline, he willed himself. Restraint. Those were a mage’s virtues.

  The chamber was empty. His heart was hardly more. His magic waited, hidden where nothing of shadow could touch it. He let his yearning lead him to it.

  oOo

  “You fool.”

  He knew that voice. He had forgotten how eerie it was: life without breath, will without substance. He stood on sanctified stone and stared, and almost—almost— remembered sanity.

  “You fool,” said the Jinniyah from beneath the altar. “You babbling, bumbling idiot. What have you loosed upon us all?”

  Gerbert scrabbled at the cloth which covered her. It slipped and fell. The Jinniyah glared out of the niche. His magic throbbed about them both. His soul opened to draw it in; and her with it, cold bronze as familiar as flesh. He cradled her like a lover.

  She sighed as if in spite of herself, echoing his own heart-deep gladness. They were whole again, both of them. His blood flowed molten with magic.

  Something stirred behind him. A presence trembled on the edges of his power. He looked without surprise into a lamplit face, a pair of cold blue eyes. Arnulf’s smile was wide and meaningless beneath them. “Ah, magister. Have you sunk even to theft?”

  “I take back what is mine,” Gerbert said.

  Arnulf laughed. There was no mirth in it. “I see now how blind I was. So much, so well hidden, and in plain sight. You are subtle, master magus.”

  “Peasant cunning,” said Gerbert, He drew a breath that caught on splendor. His magic, all his magic, roared and flamed in him. One flick of the will, and Arnulf would be his, blood and soul. It was sweet, that prospect.

  The lamp in Arnulf’s hand guttered and dimmed. With sublime contempt, Gerbert kindled the light of his power. Its clarity was merciless in that place.

  Darkness swelled within it. A shape in black, wearing the face of mortal antiquity, seized the light and swallowed it. Gerbert staggered. Power knew power; and this spirit was strong. In magic’s absence he had known nothing but that he had need, and that this being could fulfill it.

  It stretched out a hand as thin and twisted as a claw. Arnulf stared at it as if he had not comprehended, yet, what truly had brought him here, or why. His lips moved: incantation, or prayer, or simple disbelief.

  The spirit mocked him with a yapping like a dog’s. “You are mine,” it said, “by my master’s will. Come, be brave. Pain suffered soon is soonest over.”

  Arnulf’s eyes turned to Gerbert. Gerbert should have rejoiced to see that proud prince sunk even as low as this: pale, baffled, waking to fear. “You hate me so much?” Arnulf whispered.

  “More,” said the spirit. It stroked Arnulf’s cheek with appalling tenderness. “Mine,” it crooned. “Mine.”

  The archbishop gasped and shuddered. “In God’s name!”

  “Adonai!” howled the spirit. “Adonai!”

  The air was cold with horror. The light had fled. Gerbert saw with the eyes of his power, dim and shadowed sight: the spirit a shape of darkness, Arnulf a candle that flickered low. Clawed hands stretched to take him.

  “No!”

  Gerbert started and nearly dropped the Jinniyah. Richer burst into their circle, a storm of limbs and flapping skirts and flaring magelight, falling on man and s
pirit with all the ferocity of his warrior kin. Arnulf went down with a gasping cry. The spirit reared up. Richer smote it with a bolt of power.

  It quivered as if with pleasure, and smiled at Gerbert. Its teeth were like a wolf’s. “Two of them, master? You are generous.”

  Gerbert shuddered. Something was struggling outward from his heart. A word. A thought.

  “Sathanas!” cried Richer, thin and shaking. “Go, thou spirit accursed, spawn of darkness, denizen of the nether pit. I conjure thee, I constrain and command thee, I will thee begone, and all thy foulness with thee!”

  The spirit did not even waver. It was no devil. It was a lesser thing, and more terrible. A shape of madness given substance. Revenge with will and wit and power. It seized Arnulf. It seized Richer, and drew them to itself.

  Gerbert raised his hand. He had summoned the spirit, and he was a master of magic. It paused, astonished. “Let them go,” said Gerbert.

  The spirit was unwilling, but his power was unbending. Richer fell like a rag, discarded. Arnulf, the spirit kept. “He is mine,” it said. “He belongs to me.”

  So he was. Gerbert gathered to consent; heard a voice say, “No.”

  He glared down at the enchanted bronze. “What! Do even you betray me?”

  “You damn yourself,” she said, “in this that you will do.”

  “He is damned already.”

  “But not by you.”

  Gerbert raised her as if to dash her to the floor. She flexed in his hands, slipping about. Her eyes met his. They did not beg. They willed him to see as she saw. Madness; sanity. Damnation and salvation, the swearing of oaths, and the bartering of lives for one man’s anger.

  He wanted that anger. He cherished it.

  “Let him destroy himself,” the Jinniyah said.

  “And you with him,” said the spirit. Its humanity had fallen from it. Its robe rippled, unfurling. Wings fanned the stone-cold air. “Do you know what you hold, master? That is the Liar’s daughter. Death is her price.”

  She rang between Gerbert’s palms. “Death is cleaner than what that one takes. I am paid for. Will you burden yourself with that other price?”