by Tim Susman
“Conveniently vague. So the question is whether I trust you, a desperate cornered animal, or my own studies and research.” Victor turned to the fire creature. “Demon. Does this description sound accurate to you?”
“I cannot judge what the fox may have seen on his trip to the demon plane. I cannot even say how another demon would perceive it.”
“Would you say that this description aligns with your own perception?”
“Depending on how one chooses to translate the perceptions of senses that do not exist on this plane, it might or might not.”
“You’re as useless as he is,” Victor snapped.
“Do you know Saint Gregory the Great?” Kip said quickly, before Victor could turn further away from going to the demon plane. “He said, ’Illiterate men can contemplate in the lines of a picture what they cannot learn by means of the written word.’ I think that’s very profound, don’t you?”
The cell fell silent. Farley coughed. “Is ‘e calling you illiterate?”
“In a sense.” Victor rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose that the only real danger is that I try it and I can’t come back. So since you’ve been there before, we’ll send you first and then Farley will bring you back. Once I see that, I’ll go.”
“What if he comes back with magic and burns us all up?” Farley asked.
“Mmm. Yes.” Victor smiled. “This is quite the fascinating puzzle to solve. A pity it’s likely to be for naught. We’ll go together, then. If he gains magic, I will too. And Farley, if you can’t bring me back tonight, bash O’Brien’s head against the wall and then go to Peachtree and kill as many as you can.” He turned a bland gaze on Kip. “Does that sound fair to you?”
“Except in that it rests on Farley’s competence as a spellcaster,” Kip said. “But I’ve seen him summon demons, so I suppose he can cast that spell, at least.”
“Don’t imagine I’ll be bringin’ you back,” Farley sneered.
“You bring up a good point, though. All right, then, another safeguard. Demon!” The fire-creature inclined its head toward him. “Go to the top of the tallest tower in this building and remain invisible. When the first rays of the morning sun reach you, go to Peachtree in America and kill as many of its residents as you can.”
“Yes, sir.” The demon disappeared.
Victor turned to Kip. “There you are. Now, are you still going to insist on this story?”
If the wards were lowered, he could tell Nikolon to warn Emily or Alice, and could try to speak through Ash for a moment. He still held out hope that Victor would be trapped with him in the demon plane, unable to return, and if his hope was in vain, then at least he’d spared his family. “I’ll take you to the demon plane, where you can forge a link to magic, and then Farley will summon you back. When you’re back, you’ll call off the demon.”
“I still say it’s a trick,” Farley said. “Don’t just go on his say-so.”
Victor turned to the marmot with an expression of open disdain for Farley. It must be no secret between them. “I don’t trust him, but I do trust his pathetic savior complex as regards his people. If he, knowing that their destruction is at hand if he lies, continues to hold to his story, then that convinces me more than even Master Gupta’s reading would. People may cloud their thoughts, but put their backs to a wall and find what they value most, and you will get the truth out of them every time.”
“Hang on,” Farley said. “You say you can give anyone magic. How is it you only got one student out of all them Callies?”
Victor turned back to Kip with raised eyebrows. Kip took a moment to think of a reasonable answer. “You don’t imagine we’d bring all of our magical students to the Exposition, do you? It works best on younger people and many of them aren’t ready for schooling yet.”
“See?” Farley smacked his fist against the bars. “He got an answer for everything. Just let me break one of his paws and he’ll tell you the truth all right. Or one of O’Brien’s, don’t matter to me.”
“Enough.” Victor glared at Farley. “I have anticipated all of the risks, and he is willing to risk his home. I am tired of explaining to you why I believe that.” He half-turned to Kip, still talking to Farley. “Maybe, given enough time, I could draw you a picture.”
In truth, Kip was only sure that Nikolon could take them to the demon plane. He wasn’t sure what would happen afterward. But he had thought about what he would do as soon as the wards were down.
Farley shook his head and opened his mouth again, but Victor snapped, “I said that’s enough. Summon your demon back here.”
“What, cast the spell again? Just tell it to come back.”
“I’m not linked to it,” Victor said patiently. “Say its name and tell it to come back.”
“You can’t just say ‘Poatencia.’ It isn’t—”
Victor interrupted, his face reddening. “Not aloud! Not in front of others, especially other sorcerers!”
The marmot shrugged. “What they gonna do? They got no magic.”
Victor looked like he wanted to choke Farley. “Fine. Then cast the spell again, just be quick about it.”
“What, the summoning spell?”
“No, you imbecile, the spell to fly you up to where the demon is so you can tell it to come back.” Victor pressed fingers to his forehead. “Yes, the summoning spell.”
Farley grumbled but cast the spell again, and the demon reappeared with a pop and a sharp tingle in Kip’s nose. “Yes, master?” he said.
“Go find Master Seric and tell him to drop the wards for fifteen minutes. That should be enough, wouldn’t you say?”
Kip’s ears flicked. Nikolon couldn’t get to America and back in that time, but hopefully Emily had come to the Isle to look for them, or Alice was still there. Or anyone he could trust. “It depends on how far my demon has wandered in the time you’ve had me a prisoner here.”
“It will have been looking to return to you, will it not? It knows you are around the college, so it should be able to find you.”
“She’s unbound,” Kip said. “I don’t know what she’s been doing. I couldn’t talk to her without magic anyway.” He hoped Victor would not question the lie.
“Fifteen minutes it is.” Victor turned to the fire-creature. “Demon, go now, and then resume your wait at the top of the tower. Return here in fifteen minutes.”
“Yes, master.” The demon vanished again.
Victor crossed his arms. “Now, you had best hope your demon is worthy of your trust.”
Kip was already calling out silently to Nikolon, telling her to find Emily or Alice on the Isle if she could, and to tell them to summon him with the demon summoning spell in half an hour (Emily knew his sorcerer name, as he knew hers), and also to tell them that a demon might be coming to attack them at sunrise in London time, and then to come find him and make herself visible. And to please hurry because the wards around him would only be down for fifteen minutes.
He repeated that message as Victor checked his timepiece, and then repeated it again, over and over, reciting it as though it were a spell he were casting without magic out into a silent void.
“Ten minutes,” Victor said casually, looking at his timepiece again.
Kip tuned him out, reciting his plea over and over again. Every moment he hoped to hear a pop in the air and see Nikolon’s form.
“Five minutes.”
Please hurry, Kip thought, and started his request over again.
A pop, a sharp tingle in his nose, but the shape on the other side of his bars was not a female fox-Calatian. Victor looked at his timepiece and gave an approving nod. “Very punctual.”
“Wait!” Kip cried. “Just a few more minutes.”
Victor slid the timepiece back into his pocket. “I am a little disappointed,” he said, “but the consolation prize is quite worthwhile. Demon!”
“Yes, master?” the demon said, smoke trickling thinly from its smoldering “hair.”
Victor pointed at Kip.
“Read the spell in my mind and cast it on that fox.”
Kip called out to Nikolon one last time, and then closed his eyes. He prayed to Saint Gregory and to God to keep him and his family safe.
“Wait!” Malcolm called from the other cell. “I can—”
Hunger gnawed at the fox’s stomach. He spun on the stone floor, disoriented, while around him large humans made noises, some loud and rhythmic, some almost soft and musical. They smelled terrible, and one of them had marked this area with his piss, a thick rank odor that the fox backed away from.
He knew those odors, though; they were familiar, as though they frequented his home. And when he backed away, he caught movement behind him and found a beaver scuttling away. Hunger drove him forward a step, but beavers were only prey for the desperate: heavier than a fox and good fighters, they might easily injure him. And besides…this beaver’s scent too held something familiar that made him pause. Even were he starving, it would not be prey.
The large humans stood to one side of the large open area, and one of them held up paws that glowed with a dark light that hurt the fox’s eyes to look at. Another, a strange creature that looked like a burning human, hurt his nose if he got too close to it. Their noises and scents scared him, so he bolted to the far side of the bars and darted through and down the hall.
They made barks of alarm behind him, and a moment later he found himself floating in the air, his legs kicking at nothing. He yelped in alarm, and this brought the rhythmic barks from them again. The rank one whose urine he’d smelled came closer—but he was not walking; the fox was floating toward him. Though the fox flailed, he couldn’t move, so he bared his teeth.
The human wasn’t deterred. He reached out a great paw, and the fox tried to bite it but found he couldn’t open his jaw. He growled as the meaty paw touched his fur, grabbed his tail, and pulled. He was pushed against iron bars beyond which another human lay on the floor, one with a disfigured face, and there were more barks all around as he struggled to gain his freedom.
There was a pop and the sharpness that hurt his nose again. The human holding him let go with an alarmed bark as another human with the coloring of a fox appeared.
The fox-human barked in a high, melodic voice, and the other human responded. They barked back and forth while the fox struggled to find a foothold on anything and the rank human remained with its paw on his neck, occasionally making a bark of his own. At one point the paw tightened enough that the fox’s breathing became labored, but then it loosened again.
This went on for some time; the fox lost track until it felt as though there was only the air and the hunger in his stomach. And then the fox-human took him in her arms, and after a reflexive struggle, he relaxed, at ease even though his nose stung enough that he sneezed twice. He trusted her more than any of the other humans here.
She murmured something into his ear. The melodic human—not the rank one—came to stand beside them. And then the world turned inside out.
20
The Great Feat
Smells suffused the air, more variety than the fox could remember experiencing, and his nose stung so badly that he rubbed it with a paw. He was floating again, but without the unbalanced feel that he’d had floating in the air. This was more like swimming, but his fur felt different, more sensitive, as though his body were whiskers all over and motion registered from all sides.
The female fox-human was still with him, though he couldn’t say how he knew that, and the other human was nearby as well. After a moment he picked them out in the fog around him, even though their appearances and smells had changed. She was a sandstorm larger than him or maybe just very close up, smelling of a sharp spice; the human was bright blue with a silver cord trailing behind him like a tail, off out of the fox’s sight, and he no longer smelled flowery, but just of meat and earth and fear, though the acrid
The sandstorm came closer to him and enveloped him, and noises thrummed through him, not in his ears. He turned to find the source of the noise and saw a silver tail extending from the end of his own tail, stretching away. He tried to curl it, but it would not respond to him.
The noises in his mind grew different, familiar enough that he forgot his tail. They drew his attention as though they were smells telling him something.
…understand me. Please tell me when you understand me.
He understood. He could not figure out how to make a noise back, but the first noise he wanted to make was the fox-human’s name, and he thought it. Nikolon?
It worked! Do you know your name?
I’m…Kip. Kip Penfold. Awareness and memory came back in patchwork form, sparingly at first and then stronger. Victor stole my magic?
He’s restored it. For the moment. But he is…he is attempting something great and terrible.
Who is? Victor?
The bright blue spoke with Victor’s intonations. Welcome back, Penfold, and thank you. With this power, I can complete the charge laid on me by the Crown. When Broadside summons me back, I will undo Calatus’s Great Feat and take in all the magic he wasted. I thought it would take decades, but—
No! Kip cried. You promised!
I will keep my promise, Victor said. I will leave you and yours alone—entirely alone. You will be the only Calatians left in the world, and when you have passed away, there will be no more. America’s power will crumble, as will Spain’s, and the British Empire, with my magic, will reign supreme. Perhaps in two or three decades, I will summon you, so you may see—
He vanished.
The sandstorm around him retreated and radiated concern with a voice like a fluttering breeze. I tried to help. I did what you asked.
Having his awareness come back to him in this bizarre place made everything else seem unreal. The—not air, not water, but the medium, the æther, perhaps—that he floated in brought new odors to his nose every moment, some of them physical odors like pine and apples, some of them specific, like the smell of a desert morning (which Kip recognized despite never having been to a desert), and some of them curious, like a smell that made him think of the color of Alice’s ears, or one that smelled like a song Arabella had sung.
Similarly, except for the sandstorm and his own body, which looked approximately like a nude fox-Calatian made of violet light so far as he could tell, nothing that his “eyes” focused on for more than a moment remained the same. Here a patch of green that looked like a far-off hillside melted into a school of silvery fish; there a chimaera of horse and lizard shifted into a giant serpent which then birthed a bird that grew and changed from brown fur to golden feathers; there a wall of stone became glass and then loam with worms crawling out of it.
So Kip focused on Nikolon. You gave Emily my message?
Emily was not on the Isle. Neither was Alice. I searched for a long time but could not find either of them. That is why I was late.
And Victor made you bring him here?
I agreed to bring him if he would attempt to reverse the spell on you.
He brought a “hand” up in front of his “eyes,” a glowing violet appendage that moved approximately in line with his thoughts. Having something to focus on comforted him as he turned his head around to find a part of the sandstorm he could talk to. It seems to have worked.
Here, Nikolon said. Perhaps I can make you more comfortable.
Kip’s surroundings brightened and gained a sense of up and down. He sat on a warm surface, invisible at first but which became warm ocher stone that resisted his fingers with a gritty texture. In front of him, a golden fountain sprayed sparkling water into high arcs from the mouths of a nude young man and three water-serpent creatures that played around him, and the water even smelled real. Around the fountain spread a garden of flowers in bright colors and patterns Kip was sure he had never seen, and yet he knew the flowers and knew this place.
A nude vixen appeared on the bench next to him. Nikolon swished her tail. “Sometimes I create this place to sit in.”
“This is the garden from my dream. Did you put this dream in my head?”
“When I was unbound, yes.” She bowed her head.
“And that’s what you meant by ‘curses take many forms’?”
“I am cursed with these fragments of dream. I shared the curse with you.”
In the fountain, a fish surfaced briefly, drawing Kip’s attention. “Is this a place you were summoned to a long time ago?”
“I am not sure. I confess I hoped you might know the place and help me understand what it means.” Nikolon folded her paws in her lap. “If you wish to be clothed, you need only imagine yourself so.”
Kip looked down at himself, his body appearing the way he’d always known it, and then back at Nikolon. “I’ve been dreaming about this and the march through the streets and the boats for two years. I still don’t understand it, except for the feelings of betrayal.”
“This is the happiest of those three dreams.” Nikolon stared ahead at the fountain.
“Perhaps you had another master, one you could trust, or thought you could, but he betrayed you? A long time ago?”
She nodded. “Perhaps.”
“What is the earliest thing you remember?”
The vixen smiled. “Time does not proceed as you know it. I remember certain masters I have had, and I remember scenes, important points, and spells I’ve done. But the order…” She gestured with a paw. “It comes and goes. I remember helping you rescue Alice, but that feels like many years ago. I also helped a sorcerer during the wars against the Frenchman, which could have been yesterday. I remember very clearly the fabric of the French uniforms.”
“How do demons come to being?” Kip asked. “Do you have children, or…”
Nikolon’s laugh sounded like the bright splashing of the fountain. “New demons appear. Sometimes old demons fade away.”
“Then maybe these are memories around a sorcerer who summoned you. Is that why you trust me?”
“I trust you because you trust me. And because when I think of betrayal it makes me uneasy. I don’t like it.” A cloud passed over the illusory sun. The flowers drooped and their scent acquired an acrid tinge.
