The Mongolian Wizard Stories

by Michael Swanwick

  Finally, the wolf went into the little room behind the kitchen where the cook slept: floral sachets, a small bottle of rose water on her dresser, beeswax for her embroidery, and various cleansing agents, laundry soap dominant. Freki carefully sniffed the girl’s unmade bed and then returned to sit down outside the door to the conference room and await his master’s emergence.

  Within, MacDonald had finally finished his interrogation of the soldier. Drawing Ritter and the major aside, he said in a low voice, “The man is undoubtedly guilty. You see?” He pointed at spikes in the irregular line that ran across a yard’s worth of paper in his hands. “His tale of the discovery of the body is completely false! He can only be the assassin.”

  “Please,” Ritter said. “Stop this nonsense.” Turning away from MacDonald’s astonished face, he raised his voice. “Mr. Mouldiwarp, I would like to hear how you discovered the murder.”

  “There is very little to tell,” the man said. “Sir Toby had informed me that I would not be needed for anything, so I was in bed, asleep, when the gun went off. I hurriedly dressed myself and arrived at the master’s office simultaneous with Miss Willowes and Private Sutton. Inside, he was as you have seen. Mr. MacDonald heard our exclamations and joined us very soon thereafter. Private Sutton examined the master and declared him dead. There is one of the new telephonic devices in the office. I used it to summon Major Jeffries.” He paused. “I can think of nothing more.”

  “So the other guards did not rush in? Wasn’t that odd?”

  “They testified that they mistook the sound for thunder,” MacDonald said. “There was a bit of a storm at the time. So it is telling that Sutton alone identified the sound correctly. The polygraphic device records his alarm when I asked him about that. Also, Mouldiwarp was delayed by the need to dress, while the others—”

  “Your testimony is worthless,” Ritter said, “and therefore I shall ignore it. While you were playing with your little toy, I have been hard at work assembling a very good picture of all that happened.”

  All present gaped at him in astonishment.

  “I shall address the question of the tardiness of two of our suspects first. Miss Willowes is not only a lovely young woman but good-hearted as well, as witness her distribution of hot cider to the guards on duty. I imagine most of the soldiers on the base fancy themselves half in love with her. The conference center is used only sporadically. It is only natural that a lonely woman frequently left alone in a house haunted by phantoms and sourceless noises should find a stalwart young soldier a reassuring presence. By slow degrees, she would find herself returning the emotions he feels for her. Earlier tonight, Private Sutton stepped into the kitchen for a quick kiss or two from his sweetheart.” The two had, by the scents on the cook’s bedclothes, done a great deal more than kiss. But Ritter was a gentleman, so he left it at that. Addressing the young couple directly, he said, “When you heard the gunshot, you both naturally consulted each other to make certain you were not mistaken about its nature. Am I right?”

  Miss Willowes blushed and stared down at the floor. After an almost imperceptible hesitation, Private Sutton gave a tight-lipped nod.

  “Now follow me into the hallway, please.”

  Ritter led the others to the supply room. “This is the one room that Freki was not able to examine directly, because the door was latched. If I find what I expect within, my understanding of the event will be all but complete.” He opened the door.

  Inside the small room were the expected brooms, mops, and cleaning supplies. There was also an oversized galvanized bucket containing at least five gallons of bleach and what might be items of clothing. Ritter removed his jacket and rolled up one shirt sleeve. Carefully, he fished out an apron, a pair of white gloves, and a pistol. “You will note that the apron and gloves are discolored from powder burns. The murderer knew that a member of the Werewolf Corps would be involved in the investigation and took steps to ensure that his guilt could not be sniffed out by one such as me.” Turning to the building manager, he said, “You seem extraordinarily calm, Mr. Mouldiwarp, for someone whose employer has been murdered and whose murderer is still, presumably, among us.”

  “I am of a phlegmatic temperament, sir. That is how I got this job. The previous five men occupying it were put off by the phantoms haunting this building. Nothing much bothers me, it is simply the way I have been from boyhood.”

  “You are also very systematic. The supply room is meticulously tidy.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So if anybody but you yourself had imported so much bleach—far more than is required for such a small building—I am certain you would have noticed. It baffles me that you made no attempt to disguise something so obvious. Almost as much as it baffles me how you could have known you would have the time to commit your horrid deed, dump the incriminating evidence in bleach, and retreat to your room so you could burst out, looking—and smelling—like an innocent man.”

  Mouldiwarp said nothing.

  “Do not think silence will help you! Miss Willowes and Private Sutton can each vouch for the actions of the other. Mr. MacDonald had no reason to kill Sir Toby—indeed, his current position is due to Sir Toby’s patronage. Were I the permanent rather than Acting Director, he would have been fired the instant I stepped into this building and he knows it.” (MacDonald shrugged in a manner indicating he doubted seriously that a foreigner would ever be made permanent Director of British Intelligence.) “The other two guards never entered the building. There is no other possible suspect than you. Admit it!”

  “Oh, very well, I killed him.” Mouldiwarp spread his hands, as if to say it was all beyond his control. “Willoughby-Quirke was considered a danger to the Empire and so I was dispatched to eliminate him. It was an act of war.”

  “You came here as a spy and an assassin. Unlike a soldier, you are subject to summary action. I could kill you here and now and there would be no one to say I was wrong to do so.”

  “But you won’t.” There was the faintest trace of a smile on Mouldiwarp’s face, as if he were in on some joke not known by the others. “You see, I am a scryer, much like your Mr. MacDonald here. I can see the future. That is how I was chosen. The Mongolian Wizard’s espionage service routinely trains precognitives as assassins. We are never sent out unless we have seen ourselves alive and well long after the event. Eighteen months from now, I will be sitting in a bierstube in Rastenburg with a stein of pilsner in my hand, a girl of loose morals on my knee, and a medal on my chest for extraordinary service to the Mongolian Wizard. So, one way or another, I will come out of this a free man. I had expected a bungled investigation, but that turns out not to be the case. So, most likely, I will be traded for one of your own assassins, caught by our people. In any event, I have nothing to fear.”

  “You sound damnably sure of yourself.” Ritter could not keep the anger out of his voice.

  Mouldiwarp’s face was as serene as the moon. “I have seen the future. It cannot be changed. Of course I am sure.”

  Turning to address the others, Ritter said, “There has been an assassination attempt. But, by a miracle, Sir Toby escaped unscathed. Tobias Gracchus Willoughby-Quirke remains the head of British Intelligence.” He saw MacDonald open his mouth and raise a hand to object and glared him to silence. “Those are the facts as the world must know them. Anyone caught spreading rumors to the contrary will be arrested and charged with treason. Does everyone understand?”

  Miss Willowes’s eyes were wide when she nodded. The major, the guard, and MacDonald all tried to look manly.

  “As for this fellow,” Ritter said, drawing his automatic. “I am afraid that he was shot while attempting to escape.”

  Mouldiwarp was still smirking in disbelief when the bullet penetrated his forehead and splattered blood and brain matter on the wall behind him. He had foreseen the wrong future.

  * * *

  When Ritter returned to the carriage, the sun was coming up. The motorman leaned over from his perch and rea
ched down with gloved hand to open the door. Ritter got in and the engine sputtered to life. When he had settled himself into the cushions, he turned to the dark figure sitting beside him and said, “You will need to have the cook transferred elsewhere if you hope to keep up the pretense that you are dead.”

  Sir Toby sighed. “I will miss Lillian’s cooking. The girl was a dab hand at Bengal toast. Still, all must make sacrifices if the war is to be won. You uncovered the murderer, of course. I can see it in your comportment. Did my doppelganger last long enough to be removed from the mill?”

  “According to a messenger who arrived just minutes ago, the body disappeared shortly after being placed in the morgue.”

  Sir Toby sighed deeply. “Then my timeline is the stable one, not the corpse’s. I will confess, the possibility it would go the other way had me worried. And my assassin?”

  “Using my best judgment, I executed him.”

  Scowling, Sir Toby said, “You were supposed to arrest the man.”

  “I wanted to plant uncertainty in the enemy’s mind as to whether the assassination succeeded or not. I ordered the witnesses not to share any of the details of the execution or your death. Thus ensuring that there would be rumors. The Mongolian Wizard’s people will hear you are alive and not know whether to believe it. Their assassin will not return as he was foreseen to do. Your every action will be analyzed twice—as something you might do and as the act of an imposter. It will, however briefly, drive them mad.”

  “Why, Ritter! I begin to believe we shall make a proper spy of you yet,” Sir Toby said, with an approving smile.

  “Also, there was an even chance he had killed a man I esteemed and admired. That called for revenge.”

  The expression soured. “Or perhaps not.”

  “I would like to point out,” Ritter said, “that your lie-detecting machine did not render me redundant, as MacDonald boasted it would. In the end, all your shiny machines were inferior to one man, one wolf, and one talent.”

  Sir Toby drew a cigar case from his jacket, selected his victim, bit off the end, and, striking a match, puffed it to life. At last, with great solemnity, he said, “Considering, Ritter, that all our hopes of winning this war are hinged on machinery and all the Mongolian Wizard’s on talented men such as yourself, you had best pray that you are wrong.”

  The New Prometheus

  The Arctic wastes stretched wide in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice which seemed to have no end. At their center, barely visible in the weak light provided by a sliver of sun at the horizon, was a rapidly moving sled. It was pulled by eight dogs with a single wolf at their lead, and ridden by a large man bundled in Sami furs.

  Ritter welcomed the cold and hardship as an opportunity to test his manhood against Nature at its harshest. The scarf wrapped about his lower face was stiff with ice frozen from the moisture of his exhalations and what little of his skin was exposed to the air felt numb. When he bit off a mitten and pressed a hand over his eyebrows, the flesh beneath was warmed to life again and began to sting. The air was still and that, he had to admit, was good for it allowed Freki to follow the scent of their prey with ease.

  He had pursued the half-man from Europe and was prepared to pursue him to the Pole if necessary. He was sure it would not be, however, for the traces of the homunculus’s passage had not been erased from the snows. Ritter was close on his trail.

  A nub appeared on the horizon.

  Ritter drew up the sled and, taking out a pair of binoculars superior to anything he could have imagined a year ago, studied the anomaly. Under magnification, it revealed itself to be a canvas tent that had been insulated by stacking up blocks of snow on all sides and piling more loose snow over its top.

  Methodically, Ritter disentangled the sled dogs from the harness. Then he gave them a mental push to trot back a mile or so the way they had come and wait for him. If he died, his hold over the dogs would cease and then they must do their best to survive on their own. Ritter was not sure that they could. But at least they would have a chance.

  He heaped snow over the sled, so that it looked like any other unimportant lump of landscape, then lay down behind it where he could not be seen. He was far from convinced such precautions were necessary. But he had underestimated the creature’s abilities in Helsinki and would not do so again.

  Then he sent Freki ahead to serve as his ambassador.

  The wolf loped across the snow and, upon reaching the tent, scrabbled at the canvas door. Then, when hands from within pushed it open, he rolled over on his back, exposing his stomach.

  The homunculus looked down on the wolf and smiled. Kneeling, he stroked the animal’s underside and scratched it behind one ear. So far as Ritter could tell, he did not project his consciousness into Freki’s mind for even an instant. Nevertheless, the creature said aloud, “You are a diplomatic fellow, whoever you are. Come and talk to me. I promise no harm will come to you.”

  Ritter stood, brushing off snow, and began the long trudge toward the tent.

  * * *

  “The safest thing would be to kill him on sight,” Sir Toby had said. He and Ritter were in his London office, a walnut-paneled room frowsty with cigar smoke and casual treachery.

  “I am no assassin. If murder is your intent, send a professional.”

  “So I did, three of them. This is no ordinary man. Indeed, by most accounts, he is hardly a man at all.”

  In Ritter’s experience, when his superior emphasized the inhuman nature of an opponent, whether physical, mental, or moral, he intended actions such as no decent man would visit on a fellow member of human society. Scowling, he said, “How do you mean?”

  “He is a homunculus—an artificial man. There were reports—as reliable as such things can ever be—that the Mongolian Wizard had created a being with powers exceeding even his own. You will read them on your way to Helsinki. He is reputedly of great stature, inhumanly strong, and capable of wielding every known form of magic. For reasons yet unknown, this prodigy broke free of his creator and fled westward. There were several desperate attempts to recapture him. That caught our interest. Then his pursuers simply turned around and went home. Which by itself convinced me that such a being is too dangerous to be allowed loose in the world. While on the run, he somehow managed to acquire a great deal of wealth. Currently, he is using it to provision a ship. A schooner awaits you at the docks. If you leave immediately, you can intercept him before he departs for wherever he is bound.” Sir Toby fell silent. After a long pause, he said irritably, “Why are you still here?”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you expect of me.”

  “Use your own judgment. You have a certain…flexibility in these matters.”

  Ritter had never before been accused of flexibility. He decided to receive the declaration as praise. Nevertheless, he said, “If I must kill him, I will. However, I require full autonomy in this affair. It is entirely possible I will end up letting this fellow remain alive and at large.”

  Sir Toby sighed. “So be it.”

  * * *

  “I am prepared to offer you asylum,” Ritter said, “in exchange for what you know about the Mongolian Wizard. You will be given a modest stipend for as long as you need it, an apartment of your own, assistance in finding work, a new identity. By this time next year, you will be a citizen of London like any other.”

  The homunculus laughed. “A grotesque like me?”

  “You are a little tall, perhaps. But not beyond the range of human possibility.”

  “It was you who shot at me at the docks, wasn’t it?”

  “I had no choice. You rebuffed my invitation to parlay and the ship was pulling out.” Watching the man’s eyes and seeing in them no trace of intemperance, Ritter decided to take a chance. “I hit you too. You grimaced, clutched your chest, and bent over. I am certain that I saw blood. But when you straightened again, it was gone.”