by A. C. Cobble
“The kind that knows how to scry,” responded Sam. “The kind you want by your side when searching for a murderous sorcerer.”
At that, Duke quieted down, and they waited. Evidently, the apothecary didn’t begin moving any faster once he was out of sight, and it was half an hour before he returned.
“Don’t worry,” said Duke. “We’ll watch the store for you while you’re gone.”
The man snorted. “Everyone knows not to bother me during my lunch break, and if they don’t, there’s a sign hanging on the front door. Most folk stop to read it.”
Without comment, Sam stood to peer into the bag the apothecary placed on the table. Everything in it was tightly wrapped.
“You can open the contents when you get to wherever you are going. Do not do it here.”
Sam nodded.
“You’re familiar with the activity you intend to perform?” he inquired. “And you’re aware of the dangers?”
“I’ve seen it done,” she responded.
“When the elements are inside the bowl,” advised the apothecary, “I recommend using a particular wand to stir the water. It’s made from the wood of a cadaveribus tree. It’s very rare in Enhover, grown from within the chest cavity of a recently deceased. It will help make the bridge.”
“Is it expensive?” asked Duke. “Rare typically means expensive in my experience.”
“Yes, it is expensive,” acknowledged the apothecary.
Duke waited, but the man didn’t add further comment.
“We’ll take it,” said Sam, finally.
“I assumed you would,” replied the old man. “It’s already in the bag. Your total today will be thirty pounds sterling, six shillings, two pence. I don’t accept credit.”
“Thirty pounds!” cried Duke. “I could buy six prime horses for that!”
“What would you do with six horses?” inquired the apothecary.
“Three dozen sheep, then,” barked Duke. “Or twelve dozen chickens, which I would use to make eggs then eat, with plenty left to sell and make my investment back. For thirty pounds, I could hire a man to do it for me. That’s outrageous for… for what’s in that sack.”
“I’m certain you’ve spent more on an evening’s wine and company, m’lord,” responded the old man. “If you want the finer things, you must pay for them. You know that.”
Duke’s jaw fell open.
Sam nudged him. “Pay the man.”
“Many people come here and do business, m’lord,” said the apothecary as he watched Duke paw through the coins in his purse. “What they buy or the advice they seek is not always legal. I make sure to keep their secrets, as they keep mine.”
“Yes, yes, no one will hear about your business from me,” muttered Duke, counting out thick, sterling silver coins, “though how you stay in business with these prices is the mystery I really want to know.”
The man smiled at him, his thin lips pressed together tightly. “I stay in business because I provide what no one else can.”
Sam blinked, frowning at the man. “How often do people purchase items like this?”
“Like that? Never. Not anymore. I got my start in this business thirty-five years ago, though. It was different then, you understand?” He nodded toward Duke. “These days, my business is selling to noblemen like him. They use the stuff in their playacting, pretending they know what it is they do. A few of them have access to the old texts, though, so I earn a premium selling them authentic materials.”
“You’re sure it is just playacting?” questioned Duke.
The apothecary smirked. “It is. I change the ratios, from time to time, just to see if they will notice. They never do.”
Sam’s eyes fell to the paper sack on the man’s table.
“Don’t worry, girl,” said the old man, waving a hand. “You are a friend of Thotham’s, and he and I have a long history together. I will not cheat you. Do me a favor and flip the sign on the door when you leave?”
Sam stood and pulled Duke after her, ignoring the grumbling under the nobleman’s breath. She led him back out onto the sun-filled streets of Westundon, flipping the sign on the apothecary’s door.
“Shall we stop in a tavern on the way and get something to eat then go back to my flat?” she asked. “We have a long night ahead of us.”
Duke glared at a middle-aged woman who was edging around them into the apothecary, eyeing the two of them appreciatively. “She means a long night of… of… Yes, let’s get something to eat. There’s a place two blocks over with good meat pies and dark lagers.”
“Nothing like a good pie,” said Sam, winking at the woman and waving for Duke to lead the way.
Duke sat nervously in one of her two chairs as she worked. Twice already, he’d suggested going out to the pub and obtaining a bottle. Twice, he’d settled back down, evidently considering what they were doing and whether he wanted to be drunk during it.
She knew she wanted to be drunk, but not yet. Now, she had to stay focused.
She’d started by clearing the floor of her small living room, pushing back furniture, rolling up a threadbare rug, and sweeping six months’ worth of dust and dirt into the corners. She pushed everything aside until she had a space nine steps across as clean as she could make it. It was just shy of the entire width of her room. She drew a line with the chalk from the apothecary and placed one black candle and one white one on opposite ends of the line. Then, she drew a circle in the center of the line three paces across and inscribed runes at four points on it.
“That’s not north, I don’t think,” mentioned Duke.
“It’s not meant to be,” she replied.
He fell silent again, watching her work.
In the center of the circle, she placed the small sack of gold dust, the glass knife, a rag, and the wooden wand the apothecary had given her. She retrieved a glass bowl, about the size of her head, and filled it with water.
“That looks like a bowl for fish,” claimed Duke.
“Fish?”
“Pet fish,” he clarified. “I’ve seen people put them in bowls like that. They watch them, I guess, swimming around.”
“I don’t know anyone with a pet fish,” she replied, trying to ignore the nobleman.
“What will you do with that?” he asked. After a moment, he also asked, “Do you need me to be quiet while you work?”
“Fortunately not,” she replied.
Then, she sat the bowl down in the center of the circle and knelt next to it. She poured half of the gold dust into the bowl and waited while it sank to the bottom. She picked up the glass knife and tested the edge. Sharp, but she wished it was sharper. Razor-sharp would suit well. Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to sharpen glass.
She glanced at Duke. “Our goal is to find Thotham. This ritual is designed to call upon a spirit and use it to locate him for us. Through the spirit’s senses, we should be able to see him. With luck, we’ll be able to identify where he is.”
“A spirit,” said Duke. “A life spirit?”
She held his look, and then her gaze fell back to the bowl, the knife, and the gold dust. She turned to examine her runes again, making sure they were accurate. Then, that the line was straight and that the candles were placed equidistant from her and the bowl.
“Do those look the same distance from me?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Fetch me the salt. Then let us begin. Can you light the candles while I prepare the bowl? Once you are done, do not cross the boundary of the circle until I exit it.”
“What will happen if I do?” he asked, stooping to collect a small brand from her fire and pulling it out to light the candles.
“I don’t know, but surely nothing good.”
He grunted then lit the candles. His nose wrinkled and he stepped back. “That smells awful.”
“One contains the ashes of a dead man’s bones and the other the placenta from a pregnant woman,” she reminded. “I wouldn’t expect them to smell like lila
c and cinnamon.”
“What’s a placenta?” asked Duke.
“There is so much you need to learn about women,” she chided. “How you manage to… to do as well as you do truly astounds me.”
He shrugged. “I get by on what I do know.”
“So it seems,” she agreed.
Then, she drew the edge of the glass knife across her palm. She winced in pain, a short gasp escaping her lips. When the initial stab of pain faded, she began sawing hard at her flesh, cutting it deeply and letting the blood drip from her closed fist directly into the water in the scrying bowl.
The pungent smoke, rising from the two candles, jerked. It began streaming toward the circle, where it began to rotate, two flows of ash and heat. Far more smoke than should have come from the two candles, but it did not penetrate the chalk barrier.
Murmuring under her breath, Sam knelt, whispering over the bowl of water.
“Is that some ancient… Oh, is that… That’s not a strange language at all, is it?” asked Duke, edging back to the wall of her room, slowly waving his hand in front of his face to clear the smoke.
She ignored him, eyes fixed on her blood dripping into the water, billowing there as if it was smoke blown on the wind, mirroring the rotation of ash flowing up from the candles. She sprinkled three pinches of salt into the mixture, taking her time, letting the grains trickle from her fingers.
With careful looks to the side, she confirmed the smoke from the candles was forming a wall around her circle instead of making it into the circle, and she whispered again into the bowl, speaking quickly, urgently.
Then, the blood in the water stilled. Only the drip from her hand stirred the surface, and when she moved her hand to her side, the water was dead still.
She smiled and watched as slowly the blood suspended in the water began to move again. She took the glass knife and wiped it along her bloody hand, taking care to coat the entire blade with the sanguine fluid. Then, she looked through the glass and blood down at the water. She could see through the liquid of her heart. She could see the same liquid suspended in the water, shifting and swirling for no apparent reason.
Slowly, it formed into a cityscape. Rolling hills framing tall towers and an unwalled town. A small river, slender, perhaps early in its life? And rail. Leagues of rail all coming into the city into one massive station.
“Middlebury,” she called. “I am seeing Middlebury.”
She leaned close to the scene, making sure to keep her bleeding hand far away from it, and whispered again. She heard back through the breath of breeze in the room that didn’t stir the smoke outside of the circle, and she knew the spirit would assist them still. Assist them until they found Thotham. They’d gotten lucky, maybe.
“Snuff out the candles,” she said before looking up.
Duke, a frightened look in his eyes, did as she asked.
“Pass them to me,” she instructed.
“What about not breaking the barrier?” he questioned.
“Hopefully it will not be a problem.”
He grunted but did as she asked.
She took each candle and pressed the melted tip onto opposite sides of the bowl, letting the cooling wax harden there. Then, she snapped the candles off, a finger-thick length unnaturally affixed to the glass bowl. She took the rest of the gold dust from the pouch and dumped it into the bowl. She watched as it passed through her blood, miraculously not disturbing it and never reaching the bottom of the bowl. It simply vanished.
She stood and walked to the chalk circle. Carefully, she broke it at one of the inscribed runes with the toe of her boot.
“That was strange,” declared Duke. “I think I need a drink.”
“First,” she replied, “pass me that burial shroud so I can cover the bowl with it. Then, we need to hurry to the rail station. Tonight, we’re catching a ride to Middlebury.”
The Cartographer XVI
He walked behind her, keeping his pace quick but steady. Several times, he had to tell her to slow. The large bowl of water was heavier than it looked, and the open top did nothing to prevent the liquid from sloshing over the sides. He paused, wondering what would happen if the sorcerous mix of salt, water, blood, gold, and power were to spill onto his arms. He then wondered what a wet, recently used burial shroud might smell like.
Then, he began moving again, not thinking about what would happen, not remembering the swirling wall of smoke that had built around Sam’s circle, and definitely not considering what kind of spirit she’d contacted through her blood that had formed an image of Middlebury floating in the water. No, he wouldn’t think about any of that, he told himself.
“Two tickets to Middlebury,” said Sam to a bored-looking man at the ticket counter, “on the evening rail.”
“The rail is leaving, girl. You’re too late to catch tonight’s run. You want tickets for tomorrow? The dawn run might be booked, but let me check my log—”
“It is right there!” exclaimed Sam. “It’s not too late.”
“We stopped selling tickets… five minutes ago. It’s too late.”
“There are two pounds sterling in it for you if you get us on that rail,” said Oliver. The man’s eyes flashed, and he saw the greed there, so he sweetened the deal. “Two pounds for each of us. How long does it take you to make four pounds sterling?”
The man stood from his chair and bolted out the door, shouting at the men standing outside of the waiting railcars.
“We’d better follow,” said Oliver, and he started off after the clerk.
The ticket-taker was locked in a noisy argument with a uniformed conductor. Stepping by both of them, Sam and Oliver approached a second attendant standing on the step of a railcar, watching the argument on the platform.
“You have room on this car?” asked Sam.
The man turned and grinned, evaluating their attire at a glance. “For a price I do.”
“Hold the fish bowl,” Oliver instructed Sam as he unfastened his purse.
An hour later, the train passed the outskirts of Westundon, venturing into the dark hills around the city. The sky was black, the moon and stars obscured by thick, autumn clouds. The car rumbled and rocked. It was the same route they’d taken toward Harwick that first time they’d met.
Across from him, Sam nervously held the glass bowl secure. She didn’t appear any happier about the prospect of it spilling than he had been earlier.
“What will happen if it spills?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “For this to work properly, it should be dead still. The kind of spirit that could hold an image while it’s in motion is not the kind we want to deal with. If it were to spill, my blood… Well, let’s just make sure it holds steady.”
They took another turn, the railcar rocked, and she blanched.
“So, you don’t know for a fact that it would be bad,” offered Oliver. “Maybe nothing at all will happen.”
“Will happen?” she responded. “I’d rather not find out.”
He saw a bead of sweat forming on her forehead.
One arm was resting atop the scrying bowl, holding it steady. The other was clutched in her lap, a strip of rag wrapped around it, and already, he could see a crimson stain peeking out where her blood continued to seep.
“We need someone to see to that,” he said. “It could get infected and certainly will form a nasty scar.”
“My bag,” said Sam. “Can you open it?”
He reached under her seat and collected the canvas rucksack. Watching for her approval, he flipped open the top flap.
“A pocket on the side, there should be two stone vials. Get one out for me and pour it into my mouth.”
He fished around inside until he found the hard lumps of the vials. He removed one, peering at it curiously. On top of the cork stopper, red wax was embossed with a strange rune. It was a single eye, two lines undulating below it.
“Are those supposed to be tears?” he wondered.
“I don’t know,�
�� replied Sam. “Just pour it in my mouth.”
He shrugged and worried the stopper to loosen it before pulling it free. He glanced inside, but in the dim light of the railcar, he couldn’t see a thing. He thought about smelling it but given the ingredients she’d claimed were in the candles they had burned earlier in the evening, he decided not to. Standing, he gripped a bar above his head to hold him steady and tilted the vial up to pour it into Sam’s open mouth.
A sound drew his attention and he turned to see a well-dressed man walking down the aisle pausing, a look of lascivious curiosity in his eyes.
“Keep moving,” growled Oliver, turning a little so his back wasn’t to the aisle any longer. Muttering to himself, he shook the vial, hoping the last drops had fallen into Sam’s mouth. Then, he sat back on his side of the railcar booth. “It’s a shame we couldn’t get a sleeper compartment.”
“There are only so many of them,” remarked Sam, “and we were rather last minute. Later than last minute, actually.”
“What will that liquid in the vial do? Prevent infection?” he wondered.
“It will speed the healing process,” she replied. “My mentor bought the potion in Rhensar and claims it can be a life saver. It causes the flesh to knit back together quicker and is particularly effective for lacerations like I have. I’ve never used it myself, though.”
“Lacerations like the one I received in Swinpool?” groused Oliver.
“I didn’t pack a bag for that trip,” reminded Sam.
“What about when we got back?” he complained.
She waved her injured hand at him. “You’d seen a physician by then. You were fine.”
Grunting, he glanced toward the aisle that ran down the edge of the railcar. “When do you think the attendant will be by with tea and dinner? It’s getting late, and I’m famished.”
Sam stared at him, shaking her head.
“What?”
“You’ve never been outside of first class, have you?” guessed Sam. “I’ve got bad news. There is no tea and dinner coming.”
