Caller of Lightning

by Eytan Kollin

  During this last exposit, the pug had finally wandered away from its master, eager to seek what fallen crumbs it might find in the vicinity of the refreshments table. Hogarth didn’t notice, being keen on coming to the finale of the demonstration.

  He grasped the veil covering the fourth easel, but did not immediately lift it. First he addressed the audience once more. “This is my own painting, based on a drawing I did of a person I noticed in a coffee house two months ago. Mr. Askew saw it when visiting my studio and insisted I bring it here tonight.”

  With that Hogarth removed the veil, and everyone in the room understood why the painter was present.

  “He does not have the brooch,” said Askew, “and appears to have more the appearance of an eccentric than a fine courtier. But the similarity of these likenesses cannot be denied. ”

  Ben lifted a hand, feeling only slightly like a child in a schoolroom.

  Anthony Askew stepped forward. “Yes, Mr. Franklin? What is your question?”

  “I have two, actually,” said Ben, raising the volume of his voice enough to reach the whole room.

  “Continue.”

  “Our unnamed Methuselah obviously sat for the first three portraits. Mr. Hogarth caught him a fourth time by unknowing accident. But why would a secret immortal betray himself by leaving such evidence? And Mr. Hogarth, what drew your eye to him in the first place? Wouldn’t such a man, to survive, become practiced at not being noticed?”

  Ben deliberately chose not to mention Polly’s brooch, or the persistent sense that the man in the paintings was familiar to him. Those things could wait until he had actual answers to share with his fellow Society members.

  Askew nodded at Ben with respect. “Astute questions, and exactly why I requested Mr. Hogarth’s help. His eye for realism in portraiture is matched by none. It is to him I look for authentication.”

  Hogarth shook his head emphatically. “You have it, Anthony. The man I saw in the coffee house is certainly the man in these other paintings. I would stake my life on that. As for your question, Ben—” Hogarth shifted his attention to Franklin—“What caught my attention was the odd way that everyone moved around him without even looking. You know what a crowded coffeehouse is like. Might as well visit Bedlam, most times. But he stood in complete silence, examining the menu, and everyone parted round him the way water flows past a rock in a stream. I called my sketch A Study in Stillness.”

  “We have set a watch on that coffeehouse,” said Askew, “since learning Mr. Hogarth’s story. Our mystery man has not yet returned.”

  “Assuming he even will,” said Hogarth. “A man of that nature, with such depth of experience, I am sure he would have seen me sketching him. That alone might have driven him away.”

  “Which brings me to my final point,” announced Askew. “I would like everyone in this room to join me in devising ways to find our quarry. But at no point should any of us engage with him directly, either physically or in conversation. With His Majesty’s gracious permission, arrangements have been made for the King’s Guard to handle the task of isolating this man so he can be questioned. We shall play the role of the King’s hounds, as it were, baying after the fox—but once he has been treed or run to ground, we must let the King’s hunters, his Guard, take lead.”

  “Thank you, gentlemen!” called out Lord Macclesfield from his seat. “That is the presentation for the evening. Pray discuss it amongst yourselves at will and come to me or Mr. Askew if you have any questions.”

  As it happened, Ben left in different company than he arrived. Tired and deeply thoughtful, he decided to return to Craven Street before Baker, Brander, and Hogarth were ready to leave. Hogarth’s pug seemed eager to depart, but its owner overruled the excited small dog.

  John Hadley was also determined to go back to his work, so they took a hackney coach together.

  “You are unnaturally quiet, Ben,” he observed after a while.

  “The world is upside down, John. I have always taken pride in the flexibility of my intellect, but it is sore challenged in this moment.”

  “Easier for me, I suppose,” agreed the chemist. “I didn’t know about Collinson’s portion until he brought me the samples for testing, but I’ve been after our stranger longer than Askew has. Not that he agrees, because he didn’t think of it first. But I know I’m right. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

  Ben stared. “I fear you have lost me.”

  Hadley leaned back, beaming. “Do you know what the Royal Society was called before the Royal Charter was signed?”

  “Wasn’t it just known as the Philosophical Society of Oxford?”

  “Only for a few years. For nearly a century beforehand its members called it the ‘Invisible College’—a group of curious men who exchanged letters, held secret meetings, and all sought exactly the same end.”

  “Which was?”

  “Uncovering the secrets of Merlinus Ambrosius, of course—he who conquered the philosopher’s stone, learned the secret of immortality, and spent the last several thousand years amassing magic. Whom else could our eternal be?”

  Bedford Court

  Craven Street

  London, England

  July 1st

  29

  The Entire Time

  Ben convinced Polly to go for a walk without much difficulty; it took further persuasion to convince her to wear the brooch. At first she resisted, uncertain at his sudden insistence, but it soon became clear that refusal would simply confirm she had something to hide. She yielded, assuming that the issue, whatever it was, would soon become clear.

  Ben told her, as an excuse, “I can say only that I have learned something interesting about that trinket of yours—something you might wish to know as well. And it’s such a splendid sunny day, it seems a shame to discuss the matter inside when we could be appreciating its subject in the fullest natural light.”

  A brisk breeze off the coast had cleared the London air of some of the lower-hanging stench and smoke. The city, when the air was cold and all the coal furnaces were belching, was not a place for leisure walks. But after a strong breeze to clear the air, as it were, it was marvelous. They had been meandering here and there, Ben letting Polly take the lead, since he still didn’t know his way around much past Durham Yard to the Thames, each just a few moments from Craven Street. He was determined over this walk to bring up magic and the things he had discovered at the meeting of the Royal Society.

  “Polly, may I see your brooch please?” He turned to her, leaning against the railing on the edge of the walkway beside the river.

  She touched a hand to her chest, covering the green and black bauble with the tips of her fingers. “It’s quite a pain to remove. Can you just ask me what you wish to know?”

  “I’m afraid I must inspect it. Please Polly, this is important.”

  Her hand hovered there near the brooch, and she looked unsure.

  “It will simply take me a moment to confirm what I am thinking.”

  With a minimum of fuss actually removing the charm, Polly relented and handed it to Ben.

  He inspected the brooch closely, exhilarated to finally be allowed a proper examination. The second it touched his skin, he felt a jolt. It was definitely an object of power, though what it did he had no idea. Jade circled the brooch, creating a small disc, on which the black scorpion was mounted. Whatever artificer had built this trinket had been a grandmaster. The fusion of the inky black metal and jade was seamless and the two materials seemed to just melt into each other.

  His suspicions about Polly seemed accurate. Like him, she was a mage. Once the path was clear of other pedestrians, he hefted the brooch, palming it in his other hand, and cocked his arm back to throw.

  Polly reacted instinctively, throwing out a hand, fingers splayed, “No!” while her other hand furiously made an intricate set of signs and motions. Invisible tendrils of force wrapped around Ben’s arm and locked him in place, mid-throw.

  “I knew i
t!” Ben stared at Polly. He extended his other hand, turning his palm up and exposing the brooch hidden there.

  Glaring, Polly snatched away the trinket. “That was not something a nice person would do, Ben.”

  “I merely feigned the throw, harmless enough. You have lied to me, though. You can perform acts of the arcane nature and have kept it hidden from me.”

  “Hardly.” Polly glanced up from repinning her brooch long enough to flash him a dour look. “I dispatched ruffians in front of you, while pretending to tie my shoe. That was an invitation to talk with me openly, Benjamin, not to accuse me.”

  Ben sat silent for a moment, thinking through what young Polly had said. Finally, he looked up and met her eye. “I was wrong. I am sorry. You were inviting me, and I was too caught up in the, I don’t know, espionage of it all to realize that.”

  She turned her back to him, walking by him to lean against the railing.

  “I was telling the truth about the brooch, Polly. I’ve seen it in three paintings, over the course of hundreds of years, and all of them were of the same man.”

  “Can you show me this man?”

  “I cannot,” he shook his head. “I do not have access to the paintings.”

  “Do you know how to cast a glamour, Ben?”

  “Truthfully, I have no idea. I can do fog and lightning pretty well. There are a few tricks to stave off hunger and illness I have as well.”

  “Dangerous spells, those. Hm.” Polly stared out over the Thames. Finally, she turned back and faced him. “Might as well show you the rest, then. Apology accepted.”

  Ben’s lip twitched with a half-smile at his young friend, “I promise not to try anything like that again. I just needed the truth. What might we as well show me?”

  “Two things, in fact. Tonight, I will teach you to cast a glamour, as well as give you more of the fundamentals. Being self-taught is very dangerous. The second is that we are very near a place I haven’t been to in a while. It is the rooms we have taken for the Society of Numbers so we could store our collected books. We used to meet here, but it has proven inconvenient. One of our core missions is to seek out ancient journals to discover what secrets they may hold. We found a fair few, over the years.” Polly spun about and put her hands on her hips. She raised an eyebrow, “But there are more than just those found at estate sales and back alley bookstores. In particular, my old tutor had many journals that I hid there. Would you like to take a look? Of course, you would. When did Mr. Benjamin Franklin ever turn down a chance to satiate curiosity?” If she was being overly lighthearted and playful, it was simply in an attempt to balm the sting of wounded pride over the tongue-lashing she had just received.

  “You know how much the written word in all its forms fascinates me. Ancient texts sound particularly intriguing. I’ve had a few myself, over the years,” Ben nodded and smiled deprecatingly, playing into it. “Especially if they relate to that brooch and hint to the secrets of magic. And it is true enough that I always feed that particular hunger. Yes, let us go.”

  They reached the building, an unassuming closed shopfront on a side street, and climbed the stairs to the residences above. Once inside, they went up to the next floor and Polly began poking around in a plant next to the door. “Oh no, it looks like someone has taken off with the key. Someone always forgets to put it back. Luckily, there’s a trick to popping it.”

  “Pick the lock?” Ben looked at Polly and slowly moved his hand toward the doorknob, “Might as well give it a try? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” He waggled his eyebrows and twisted the knob, muttering in Latin under his breath as he did. Ben kept a deadpan expression as the door opened easily, swinging silently inward. Even more surprising, they saw a man surrounded by books and materials he had pulled from shelves and trunks around him, oblivious to the state the room was in, and unaware of their entrance. He knelt, digging through one of the trunks.

  Polly pushed past Ben and stood behind the stranger indignantly, “How dare you? These are not your rooms. I shall have you arrested for trespass and thievery!”

  “Oh, hello Polly.” The man glanced back, only half interested. He went back to rooting through the scattered papers in the trunk. “I have every right to be here. Even more than you. Or, should I call you Lord Twenty-Three instead of Polly?”

  “Who? What? I know you—” Polly tilted her head to the side, a quizzical look on her face, “Mr. Overton?” Her fury was temporarily forgotten in the shock of being confronted by her old tutor’s face.

  Ben stared also, tilting his head this way and that, squinting his eyes, with the nagging thought, I know him from somewhere.

  From amidst the things gathered around him, Mr. Overton motioned dismissively, “Forgive me if I do not get up to receive you. I’m looking for something, and I’m not quite sure where it is.”

  “What are you doing here?” Polly’s brows furrowed. She was deeply perplexed. “And how did you know I was Lord Twenty-Three?”

  “You are cleverer than that, Polly.” Mr. Overton sighed, then stood up and made his way out of the chaos he had created. “Because I am Lord One. Of course. It is clear your education has lapsed considerably for you to have been unable to arrive at that conclusion yourself. Even with the glamour I’ve cast.” He waved a hand casually. “Animan.”

  It was like a fog began to lift and the ball dropped for Ben, though his thoughts were still fuzzy. Its him! The man from the portrait! He gaped.

  Polly reddened, and, where she had seemed at first delighted to see Mr. Overton, now she pulled herself back. Something felt familiar to her about him, and yet also off. “Why did you abandon me?”

  “You’re . . . You . . . ” Ben pointed.

  Overton regarded them both for a moment, then glanced toward the fireplace, though it held no fire.

  “It’s more than half useless talking to you two until the spell finishes wearing off anyway. What would you have of me?”

  Polly ventured, “You were Lord One the entire time. And you knew I joined the Society. Why the subterfuge? Was it necessary to hide from me?”

  “Necessary?” He seemed angry. “Then you are even more naïve than you were as a child. I hoped to see you grow into your power, into who you could have been. Instead, I watched you prattle about with my hounds. They are my dogs, only meant to find things for me. And,” he continued, standing, “this is all very much necessary.”

  Polly reddened at the insult.

  Ben finally found enough faculty to speak. Every moment, more of whatever Overton had done cleared away. “I know who you are now. I’ve seen the paintings of you. Desist with your badgering, Merlin. You’d think that after millennia alive you’d have learned some manners.”

  “Is that what those fools of the King’s think? You couldn’t be more wrong, there was no Merlin. Just a confused soldier drinking with Geoffrey and starting a legend. And, frankly, you are not the one to command me,” Overton answered back.

  Ben and Polly both tried to talk over each other, and Overton sliced his right hand through the air in an angry motion. “Silence. All of this is irrelevant,” and in a sudden inversion of his motion, Overton waved his left hand and a blast blew Ben against the back wall. Shelving and books collapsed atop him. He struggled to rise, his head swimming.

  Polly looked at her former teacher through narrowed eyes, mumbling, hands behind her back.

  “None of that.” Overton walked over to her. “Slæp.”

  Polly froze, unable to even move her eyes.

  Bloody hells. Gasparini?? Ben stared, wide eyes, as his muscles stopped responding and he slumped down.

  “I had hoped that you would grow to be so much. Just as I hoped he,” the magician gestured to the moaning form of Ben, “would stay on the other side of the ocean. But you both disappointed me.” Overton unclasped the brooch from her bodice. “The Royal Society and the Society of Numbers were the best you two could do? You don’t deserve this, I’m sad to say. I had hoped you would
become an ally.”

  He turned, walking toward the fireplace.

  The second his back turned, Polly began moving her fingers again. Her jaw clenched and sweat dripped from her brow.

  “After today you won’t see—” Overton began, then stumbled as Polly’s mental pressure overcame him.

  Ben watched in awe as Overton struggled to stay upright. Ben fought his way vertical, regretting the stiffness and heft of old age every second of the way up. There was a force, like waves, coming off the angry Polly. Even behind her, Ben fought to not be pinned to the wall. Her hands were working what looked like a simple mathematical count as Overton became red and began to steam. He dropped to his knees.

  A primal scream began to build as a gut-wrenching sound ripped its way out of Polly’s chest. It tore through the cacophony of silence ringing in all their ears. Ben finally realized what he was witnessing—a battle of raw will between two equally gifted mages.

  Ben forced his arm up and held a hand out to Polly, doing the only thing he could think. “Præsidio,” he muttered. The sleep spell shifted, hitting him full force, and he slid down the wall, exhausted.

  It was enough. Polly stepped forward, marshalling all her strength in the second Ben had bought her.

  Overton grabbed his head. His face became redder and redder, his breathing coming in great gasps. He toppled, unmoving, and all the pressure in the room dissipated.

  Neither Ben nor Polly moved. Polly wasn’t even sure she was breathing. At any moment, she was sure Overton would leap back up and blast them both.