Nightshades

by Tanith Lee

  The scholar, convinced by the satchel-man's persistence and the dregs of the brandy, eventually resummoned the king's ghost.

  Nothing happened. The scholar and the satchel-man strenuously reiterated the summons. Still nothing. It seemed the ghost had been right in hinting that the ritual was important. He had obeyed on the first occasion because his had been the last and newest soul in the vase, but he had no need to obey further without proper incentive.

  Then the scholar fell to philosophizing and the satchel-man fell to cursing him. Presently the scholar turned the satchel-man out of his house. That night, while the scholar snored in brandy-pickled slumber, the satchel-man regained entry and stole the vase. It was not his first robbery, and his exit was swift from practice.

  Thereafter he wandered, endeavouring to locate a mage who knew the correct magic to name, draw forth and browbeat the ghosts in the vase. Or even merely to draw out the rose-opal stopper with which the scholar had inconsiderately recorked it.

  Months passed with the mission unaccomplished, and despair set in.

  Until the satchel-man caught word of the Magician-Lord Subyrus.

  To begin with, the satchel-man may have indulged in a dream of enlisting Subyrus' aid, but rumour dissuaded him from this notion. In the long run, it seemed safer to sell the vase outright and be rid of the profitless item. If any mage alive could deal with the thing it was the Master of the Ten Mechanicae. And somehow the salesman did not think Subyrus would share his knowledge. To accept payment in gold seemed the wisest course.

  The satchel-man came to himself and saw the fire on the wide hearth had changed. It was green now, and perfumed with apples. The fire must be the third of the Mechanicae.

  Subyrus had not changed. Not at all.

  'And your price?' he gently murmured. His eyes were nearly shut.

  'Considering the treasure I forgo in giving up the vase to your lordship -' The satchel-man meant to sound bold, succeeded in a whining tone.

  'And considering you will never reach that treasure, as you have no power over the vase yourself,' Subyrus amended, and shut his eyes totally from weariness.

  'Seven thousand vaimii,' stated the satchel-man querulously.

  'One for each of the seven thousand ghosts in the vase.'

  Subyrus' lids lifted. He stared at the satchel-man and the satchel-man felt his joints loosen in horror. Then Subyrus smiled. It was the smile of an old, old man, dying of ennui, his mood lightened for a split

  second by the antics of a beetle on the wall.

  'That seems,' said Subyrus, 'quite reasonable.'

  One hand moved lazily and the fourth of the Mechanicae manifested itself. It was a brazen chest which sprang from between the charred-rose draperies. Subyrus spoke to the chest, a compartment shot out and deposited a paralysing quantity of gold coins on the rugs at the satchel-man's feet.

  'Seven thousand vaimii,' Subyrus said. 'Count them.'

  'My lord, I would not suppose -'

  'Count them,' repeated the magician, without emphasis.

  Anxious not to offend, the satchel-man did as he was bid.

  He was not a particularly far-sighted man. He did not realize how long it would take him.

  A little over an hour later, fingers numb, eyes watering and spine unpleasantly locked, he slunk into the mechanical cage and was borne back to the surface. This time, his guts were left plastered to the lowermost floor of the hollow hill.

  Musically clinking, and in terror lest he himself be robbed, the satchel-man limped hurriedly away through the starry and beautiful night.

  3

  Proving the Vase

  The fire burned warmly black, and smelled of musk and ambergris.

  This was the aspect of the fire which Subyrus used to recall Lunaria to him. The idea of her threaded his muscles, his very bones, with an elusive excitement, not quite sexual, not quite pleasing, not quite explicable. In this mood, he did not even visualize Lunarie Vaimian as a woman, or as any sort of object. Abstract, her memory possessed him and folded him round with an intoxicating, though distant and scarcely recognizable, agony. It was quite true that she, of the entire city of Vaim, defied him. She asked him continually for gifts, but she would not accept money or jewels. She wanted the benefits of his status as a magician. So he gave her a rose which endlessly bloomed,

  a bracelet which, at her command, would transmute to a serpent, gloves that changed colour and material, a ring that could detect the lies of others and whistle thinly, to their discomfort. He collected sorcerous trinkets and bought them for gold, to give to her. In response to these gifts, Lunaria Vaimian admitted Subyrus to her couch. But she also dallied with other men. Twice she had shut her doors to the Master of the Ten Mechanicae. Once, when he had smitten the doors wide, she had said to him: 'Do I anger you, lord?

  Kill me then. But if you lie with me against my will, I warn you, mighty Subyrus, it will be poor sport.'

  On various occasions, she had publicly mocked him, struck him in the face, reviled his aptitude both for magic and love. Witnesses had trembled. Subyrus' inaction surprised and misled them.

  They reckoned him besotted with a lovely harlot, and wondered at it, that he found her so indispensable he must accept her whims and never rebuke her for them. In' fact, Lunaria was indispensable to the Magician-Lord, but not after the general interpretation.

  Her skin was like that dark brown spice called cinnamon, her eyes the darker shade of malt. On this sombreness was superimposed a blanching of blonde hair, streaked gold by sunlight and artifice in equal measure. Beautiful she was, but not much more beautiful than several women who had cast themselves at the feet of Subyrus, abject and yielding. Indeed, the entire metropolis and hinterland of Vaim knew and surrendered to him.' All-powerful and all-feared and, with women who beheld his handsomeness and guessed at his intellect, all-worshipped. All that, save by Lunaria. Hence, her value. She was the challenge he might otherwise find in no person or sphere. The natural and the supernatural he could control, but not her. She was not abject or easy. She did not yield. The exacerbation of her defiance quickened him and gave him a purpose, an excuse for his life, in which everything else might be won at a word.

  But this self-analysis he concealed from himself with considerable cunning. He experienced only the pangs of her rejection and scorn, and winced as he savoured them like sour wine. Obsessed, he gazed at the vase of blue crystal, and pondered the toys of magic he had given her formerly.

  The vase.

  The stopper of rose-opal had already been removed by one of the spells of the Forax Foramen, a copy of which ancient book (there were but three copies on earth) was the property of Subyrus. At this spell, written in gold leaf on sheets of black bull's hide, Subyrus had barely glanced. His knowledge was vast and his sorcerous vocabulary extensive. The stopper leapt from the neck of the vase - Subyrus caught it and set it by. Inside the crystal there commenced the foaming and lathering which the scholar had described to the satchel-man.

  At Subyrus' other hand lay a second tome. No exact copies of this book existed, for it was the task of each individual mage to compile his own version. The general title of such a compendium being Tabulas Mortem, Lists of the Dead.

  From these lists Subyrus had selected seventy names, a hundredth portion of the number of souls said to be trapped in the vase. They were accordingly names of those who had died in peculiar circumstances, and in an aura of shadows, such as might indicate the nearness at that time of the soul-snaring crystal and of someone who could operate its magic.

  With each name there obtained attendant rituals of appeasement, summoning and other things that might apply when wishing to contact the dead. All were subtly different from each other, however similar seeming to the uneducated eye.

  The fire sank on the hearth now, paled and began to smell of incense and moist rank soil.

  Subyrus had performed the correct ritual and called the first name. He omitted from it the
five inflexions that would extend the summons beyond the world, since his intent was centred on the trapped ghosts of the vase. He had also discarded the name of the king from whose tomb the vase had been taken. Occult theory suggested that such a spirit, having been recently obedient to an inaccurate summons (such as the scholar's), could thereby increase its resistance to obeying any other summons for some while after. So the name Subyrus named was a fresh one. Nor, though the ritual was perfect, was it answered.

  That soul, then, had never been encaged in the vase. Subyrus erased the name from his selection, and commenced the ritual for a second.

  In Vaim it was midnight, and over the hill above the magician's subculum the configurations of midnight were jewelled out in stars.

  Subyrus spoke the nineteenth name.

  And was answered.

  The moistureless foam-clouds gathered and overspilled the vase.

  White bubbles and curlicues expanded on the air. From their midst flowed up a slender strand unlike the rest, which proceeded to form a recognizable shape. Presently, a foot-high figurine balanced on the air, just over the castellated lip of the vase. It was a warrior, like an intricately sculptured chess piece, whose detail was intriguing on such a scale - the minute links of the mail, the chiselled cat that crouched on the helm, the sword like a woman's pin. And all of it matt white as chalk.

  'I am here,' the warrior cried in bell-like miniature tones. 'What do you want of me?'

  'Tell me how you came to be imprisoned in the crystal.'

  'My city was at war with another. The enemy took me in a battle, and strove to gain, by torture, knowledge of a way our defences might be breached. When I would say nothing, a magician entered. He worked spells behind a screen. Then I was slain and my ghost sucked into the vase. Next moment, the magician summoned me forth, and they asked me again, and I told them everything.'

  'So,' Subyrus remarked, 'what you would not betray as a man, you revealed carelessly once you were a spirit.'

  'Exactly. Which was as the magician had foretold.'

  'Why? Because you were embittered at your psychic capture?'

  'Not at all. But once within, human things ceased to matter to me. Old loyalties of the world, its creeds, yearnings and antipathies - these foibles are as dreams to those of us who dwell in the vase.'

  'Dwell? Is there room then, inside that little sphere, to dwell?'

  'It would amaze you,' said the warrior.

  'No. But you may describe it.'

  'That is not normally one of the questions mortals ask when they summon us. They demand directions to our sepulchres, and ways to break in and come on our hoarded gold, or what hereditary defects afflict our line, in order they may harm our descendants. Or they command us to carry out deeds of malevolence, to creep in small hidden areas and steal for them, or to frighten the nervous by our appearance.'

  'You have not replied to my question.'

  'Nor can I. The interior of this tiny vase houses seven thousand souls.

  To explain its microcosmic structure in mortal terms, even to one of the mighty Magician-Lords, would be as impossible as to describe colour to the stone-blind or music to the stone-deaf.'

  'But you are content,' said Subyrus.

  The warrior laughed flamboyantly. 'I am.'

  'You may return,' said Subyrus, and uttered the dismissing incantation.

  Subyrus progressed to a twentieth name, a twenty-first, a twenty-second. The twenty-third answered. This time a white philosopher stood in the air, his head meekly bowed, his sequin eyes whitely gleaming with the arrogance of great learning.

  Tell me how you came to be imprisoned in the crystal.'

  'A Tyrant acquired this vase and its spell. He feared me and the teachings I imparted to his people. I was burned alive, the spell activated, and my ghost entered the vase. Thereafter, the Tyrant would call me forth and try to force me to enact degrading tricks to titillate him. But though we who inhabit the vase must respond to a summons, we need not obey otherwise. The Tyrant waxed disappointed. He attempted to smash the vase. At length he went mad. The next man who called me forth wished only to hear my philosophies. But I related gibberish, which troubled him.'

  'Describe the interior of the vase.'

  'I refuse.'

  'You understand, my arts are of the kind which can retain you here as long as I desire.'

  'I understand. I pine, but still refuse.'

  'Go then,' and Subyrus uttered again the dismissing incantation.

  It was past three o'clock. Altogether, six white apparitions had evolved from the blue vase. Subyrus had reached the fortieth name selected from the Tabulas Mortem. He was almost too weary to speak it.

  The atmosphere was feverish and heavy with rituals observed and magics pronounced. Subyrus' thin and beautiful hands shook slightly with fatigue, and his beautiful face had grown more skull-like. To these trivialities he was almost immune, though exhaustion heightened his world-sated gravity.

  He said the fortieth name, and the figure of a marvellous woman rose from the vase.

  'Your death?' he asked her. She had been an empress in her day.

  'My lover was slain. I had no wish to live. But the man who brought me poison brought also this vase under his cloak. When my soul was snared, he carried the vase to distant lands. He would call me up in the houses of lords, and bid me dance for his patrons. I did this, for it amused me. He received much gold. Then, one night, in a prince's palace, I lost interest in the jest. I would not dance, and the wretch was whipped. The prince appropriated the vase. When I begged leave to rest, the prince recited the incantation of dismissal, which the whipped man had revealed. Ironically, the prince was not comparably adept at the phrases of summoning, and could never draw me forth again.'

  The woman smiled, and touched at the white hair which streamed about her white robe.

  'Surely you miss the gorgeous mode of your earthly state?' Subyrus said.

  'Not at all.'

  'Your prison suits you then?'

  'Wonderfully well.'

  'Describe it.'

  'Others have told me you asked a description of them.'

  'None obliged me. Will you?'

  But the woman only smiled.

  Broodingly, Subyrus effected her dismissal.

  He pushed the further names aside, and, taking up the stopper of rose-opal, replaced it in the vase. The fermentation stilled within.

  Slowly, the fire reproduced the darkness and scents that recalled Lunaria for the magician.

  The vase was proven - and ready. The promise of such a thing would flatter even Lunaria. She had had toys before. But this -perverse, oblique, its potential elusive but limitless - it resembled Lunaria herself.

  As the brazen bell-clocks of Vaim struck the fourth hour of black morning, an iron bird with chalcedony eyes (fifth of the Mechanicae) flew to the balconied windows of Lunaria's house.

  The house stood at the crest of a hanging garden, on the eastern bank of the river. Here Lunaria, honouring her name, made bright the dark, turning night into day with lamplight, singing, drums, harps and rattles. Her golden windows could be seen from miles off. 'There is Lunaria's house,' insomniacs or late-abroad thieves would say, chuckling, envious and disturbed. An odour of flowers and roast meats and uncorked wines floated over the spot, and sometimes fire-crackers exploded, saffron, cinnabar and snow, above the roof and walls. But after sunrise the windows turned grey and the walls held silence, as if the house had burnt itself out during the night.

  The iron bird rapped a pane with its beak.

  Lunaria, heavy-eyed, opened her window. She was not astonished or dismayed. She had seen the bird before.

  'My master asks when he may visit you.'

  Lunaria frowned. 'He knows my fee: a gift.'

  'He will pay.'

  'Let it be something unheard of, and unsafe.'

  'It is.'

  'Tomorrow then. At sunset.'

 
; 4

  Lunaria of Vaim

  The sinking sun bobbed like a blazing boat on the river. Water and horizon had become a luminous scarlet stippled with copper and tangerine. A fraction higher than the tallest towers of Vaim, this holocaust gave way to a dense mulberry afterglow, next to a denser blue, and finally, in the east, a strange hollow black, littered by stars.

  Such a combination of colours and gems in the apparel of man or woman, or in any room of a house, would have been dubious. But in the infallible and faultless sky, they were lovely beyond belief and almost beyond bearing.

  Nevertheless, the sunset's beauty was lost on Subyrus, or rather, alleviated, dulled. At a finger's snap almost, he could command the illusion of such a sunset, or, impossibly, a more glorious one. It could not therefore impress or stimulate him, even though he rode directly through its red and mulberry radiance, on the back of a dragon of brass. The sixth of the Mechanicae, the dragon was equipped with seat and jewelled harness, and with two enormous wings that beat regularly up and down in a noise of metal hinges and slashed air. It caught the last light and glittered like a fleck of the sun itself. In Vaim, presumably, citizens pointed, between admiration and terror.

  A servant beat frantically on the door of Lunaria's bedchamber.

  'Lady-he is here!'

  'Who?' Lunaria inquired sleepily from within.

  'The Lord Subyrus,' cried the servant, plainly appalled at her forgetfulness.

  On the terrace before the house, the dragon alighted. Subyrus stilled it with a single word of power. He stepped from the jewelled harness, and contemplated the length of the hanging garden. Trees precariously leaned over under their mass of unplucked fruit, the jets of fountains pierced shadowy basins that in turn overflowed into more shadowy depths beneath. Trellised night flowers were opening and giving up their scent. In Lunaria's garden no day flowers bloomed, and no man could walk. Sometimes the gardeners, crawling about the slanted cliff of the hanging garden to tend the growth and the water courses, fell to their deaths on the thoroughfare eighty feet below. The only entrance to the house was through a secret door at the garden's foot, of whose location Lunaria informed her clients. Or