The Mammoth Book of Dark Magic

by Mike Ashley

  I sat up in alarm, but the stranger held up a finger, indicating that I should be silent. I could not see his face. He wore a silver mask of the Moon, mottled and rough, with rays around the edges. His white, ankle-length robe flapped gently in the frigid breeze.

  He motioned me to follow, and I did, silently dipping my paddle into the water. The stranger walked barefoot on the surface, ripples spreading with every step.

  We travelled for a long time through a maze of open pools and tufts of grass, among the dead reeds, until we came to a half-submerged ruin of a tower, no more than a black, empty shell covered with mud and vines.

  Then hundreds of other robed, masked figures emerged from the marsh, not walking on the water as had my guide, but crawling, their movement a curious waddle, their bodies swaying from side to side as does that of a crocodile when it comes out on land. I watched in amazement as they gathered around us, bowing low at the upright man’s feet, as if in supplication.

  He merely spread his hands and wept.

  Then I recalled one of my father’s stories, about a proud king, whose palace was more resplendent than the sun, of whom the gods were jealous. One day a crocodile-headed messenger came into the glittering court and hissed, “My master summons you, O King, as he summons all.” But the king, in his pride, bade his guards beat the messenger and throw him into the river whence he came, for the king did not fear the gods.

  And Surat-Kemad did not care to be feared, only obeyed, so the Great River flooded the land, swallowing the palace of the king.

  “That’s not much of a story,” I’d complained to Father.

  “It is merely true,” he said.

  Now I looked on in awe, desperate to ask so many questions but afraid to speak. But the sky lightened, and the weeping of the standing man became merely the wind rattling in the reeds.

  The sun rose, and the supplicants removed their masks and became merely crocodiles. Their robes were somehow gone in the shifting light. I watched their dark bodies sink into the murky water.

  I looked to the standing man, but a long-legged bird remained where he had been. It let out a cry and took to the air, wings thundering.

  The warm sun revived me. I sat up, coughing, my nose running, and looked around. The sunken tower was still there, a heap of dead stone. But I was alone. It was midday before I got back to the City of the Reeds.

  The city is a different place in the daylight, bright banners waving from towers, houses likewise bright with hangings and with designs painted on walls and roofs. The ships of the river unload by day, and the streets are filled with the babble of tongues, while traders and officials and barbarians and city wives all haggle together.

  It is a place of sharp fish smells and strange incense and leather and wet canvas and unwashed rivermen who bring outlandish beasts from the villages high in the mountains, near the birthplace of the river.

  By day, too, there are a thousand gods, one for every stranger, for every tradesman, for everyone who has ever passed through or resided or merely dreamed of a new god during an afternoon nap. In the street of carvers one can buy idols of all these gods, or even have new images, made if one happens to be divinely inspired at the time.

  At night, of course, there is only Surat-Kemad, whose jaws rend the living and the dead, whose body is the black water, whose teeth are the stars.

  But it was by day I returned, making my way through the tangle of ships and smaller boats, past the wharves and floating docks, then beneath the city until I came out the other side near my father’s house.

  Hamakina ran to me when I emerged through the trapdoor, her face streaming with tears. She embraced me, sobbing.

  “Oh Sekenre, I’m so afraid!”

  “Where is Father?” I asked, but she only screamed and buried her face in my robe. Then I said, “Where is Mother?”

  Hamakina looked up into my face and said very softly, “Gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “She has gone to the gods, my son.”

  I looked up. Father had emerged from his workroom, his sorcerer’s robe wrapped loosely over soiled white trousers. He hobbled toward us, dragging himself as if he didn’t quite know how to walk. I thought there was something wrong with his legs.

  Hamakina screamed and ran out onto the wharf. I heard the front door bang against the outside of the house.

  I stood my ground.

  “Father, where is Mother?”

  “As I said . . . gone to the gods.”

  “Will she be coming back?” I asked, hopeless as I did.

  Father did not answer. He stood there for a moment, staring into space, as if he’d forgotten I was even there. Then he said suddenly, “What did you see, Sekenre?”

  I told him.

  He was silent again.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It didn’t mean anything. Did I do something wrong?”

  For once he spoke to me tenderly, as he had in the old days when I was very small.

  “No, faithful child, you did nothing wrong. Remember that the vision of your life goes on as long as your life does; and, like your life, it is a mystery, a maze, with many turnings, many things suddenly revealed, many things forever hidden. The longer you live, the more you will understand what you have seen this night. Each new piece of the vast puzzle changes the meaning of all that has gone before as you draw nearer and nearer the truth . . . but you never reach your destination, not entirely.”

  The cold and the damp had given me a fever. I lay ill for a week, often delirious, sometimes dreaming that the masked figure in the vision stood at my bedside, barefoot on the surface of the black water while dead reeds rattled all around. Sometimes, as the sun rose, he took off his mask and a heron screamed at me, leaping into the air on thunderous wings. Sometimes it was my father beneath the mask. He came to me each dawn, put his hand on my forehead, recited words I couldn’t make out, and bade me drink a sweet-tasting syrup.

  After the fever had gone, I saw him very little. He retreated to his workroom, noisily barring the door. Hamakina and I were left to care for ourselves. Sometimes it was hard just finding food. We tried to assemble the leftover pieces of Mother’s hevats but seldom got much for the results.

  Meanwhile, lightning and thunder issued from the workroom. The whole house shook. Sometimes there were incredibly foul odors, and my sister and I would spend our nights outdoors, on rooftops among the beggars of the city, despite all the dangers. And once, as I crouched by the workroom door, terrified and holding back tears, Father spoke and I heard him answered by many voices, all of them faint and far away. One sounded like Mother. All were afraid, pleading, babbling, screaming.

  At times I wondered where Mother had gone, and tried to comfort Hamakina. But in my worst fears, I knew perfectly well what had happened to her. I could not tell Hamakina that.

  There was no one I could turn to, for now Father was the most feared of all the city’s black sorcerers, and even the priests dared not anger him. Demons of the air and of the river regularly convened at our house. I heard them scratching, their wings and tails dragging, while my sister and I huddled in our room, or kept to the rooftops.

  In the streets, people turned away when they saw us, made signs and spat. Then one day Father came to me, moving slowly and painfully, as if he were very old. He sat me down at the kitchen table and stared into my eyes for a long time. I was afraid to turn from his gaze. He had been weeping.

  “Sekenre,” he said, very gently, “do you love your father still?”

  I could not answer.

  “You must understand that I love you very much,” he said, “and I always will, no matter what happens. I want you to be happy. I want you to do well in your life. Marry a fine girl. I don’t want you to become what I have become. Be a friend to everybody. Have no enemies. Hate no one.”

  “But . . . how?”

  He took me by the hand, firmly. “Come. Now.”

  I was terribly afraid, but I went.

  There was near panic
as he came into the city, yanking me along, walking in his strange way with his whole back writhing and rippling beneath his sorcerer’s robe like a serpent trying to stagger on heavy legs.

  People shouted and ran as we passed. Women snatched up their children. A pair of priests crossed their staves to make a sign against us. But Father ignored them all.

  We came to a street of fine houses. Astonished faces stared down at us from high windows. Then Father led me to the end of an alley, down a tunnel, and into a yard behind one of the mansions. He knocked at a door. An old man appeared, by his garb a scholar. He gasped and made a sign to ward off evil. Father pushed me inside.

  “Teach my son what you know,” he said to the old man. “I will pay well.”

  That was how I became an apprentice to Velachronos the historian, scribe, and poet. I knew letters already, but he taught me to make fine ones full of swirls and beautiful colors. Then he taught me something of the history of our city, and of the river and the gods. I sat with him for long hours, helping to transcribe ancient books.

  Clearly Father wanted me to become learned, so that I would dwell in honor among the people of the city, and know at least modest comfort, as Velachronos did. The old man remarked on this once, “You seldom see a rich scholar or a starving one.”

  But my sister was ignored completely. Once, when I came home after lessons and found Father outside of his workroom, I said, “What about Hamakina?”

  He shrugged. “Take her along. It hardly matters.”

  So Velachronos had two apprentices. I think he accepted us out of fear at first. I tried to convince him we were not monsters. Gradually he acquiesced. Father paid him double. I labored over the books. Hamakina, too, learned to paint beautiful letters, and Velachronos taught her something of music, so she could sing the ancient ballads of the city. Her voice was very beautiful.

  He was kind to us. I remember the time with him fondly. He was like a grandfather or a generous uncle. He took us to the children’s festival that spring, and rose from his seat to applaud when Hamakina won the prize in the contest of the masks and the sparrow-headed image of the god Haedos-Kemad leaned forward and showered her with candy.

  I felt too old for that sort of thing, yet Father had never taken me to the priests to declare me a man. It is a simple rite unless parents want to make it elaborate. There is only a small fee. I had already had my vision from the gods. Yet Father did not take me and I remained a child, either because I was somehow unworthy, or he merely forgot.

  Meanwhile his sorceries grew more extreme. At night the sky flickered from horizon to horizon, and sometimes he came out onto the wharf in front of our house to speak with the thunder. It answered back, calling out his name, and, on occasion, my name.

  The stenches from the workroom worsened, and there were more voices, more terrifying visitors in the night. But, too, Father would sometimes stagger about the house, pulling at his beard, flailing his arms like a madman, like someone possessed by a frenzied spirit, and he would seize me and shake me so hard it hurt and plead with me, “Do you love me, son? Do you still love your father?”

  I could never answer him. It drove me to tears many times. I locked myself in my room and he would stand outside the door, sobbing, whispering, “Do you love me? Do you?”

  Then came an evening when I sat studying in my room – Hamakina was off somewhere – and a huge barbarian adventurer climbed in through the window, followed by a little rat-faced man from the City of the Delta.

  The barbarian snatched the book from my hands and threw it into the river. He took me by the wrist and jerked. My forearm snapped. I let out a little yelp of pain and the rat-faced man held a long, thin knife like an enormous pin to my face, pressing gently on one cheek, then the other, just below my eyes.

  He whispered, flashing filthy teeth. His breath stank.

  “Where’s yer famous wizard da’ who’s got all the treasure? Tell us, brat, or I’ll make a blind girl out of ye and tie yer guts fer braids—”

  The barbarian merely grabbed me by the front of my gown in one huge hand and slammed me against the wall so hard that blood poured out of my nose and mouth.

  I could only nod to my left, toward Father’s workroom.

  Later, when I returned to consciousness, I heard the two of them screaming. The screaming went on for days behind Father’s door, while I lay feverish and Hamakina wiped my forehead but could do nothing more. It was only when the screaming faded to distant murmurs, like the voices I’d heard that one time before, like the voice that might have been Mother’s, that Father came and healed me with his magic. His face was ashen. He looked very tired.

  I slept and the barefoot man in the silver mask knelt on the surface of the water, sending ripples all around my bed. He whispered to me the story of the heron boy who stood among the flock in the dawn light and was left behind when the birds took flight, standing there, waving his graceless, featherless arms.

  A few weeks later, Velachronos threw us out. I don’t know what happened with him at the end. Perhaps it was just a rumor, or a culmination of rumors, or he might even have heard the truth about something I did not know, but one day, when Hamakina and I came for our lessons, he stood in the doorway and all but shrieked, “Begone! Get out of my house, devil-spawn!”

  He wouldn’t explain or say anything more. There was nothing to do but leave.

  That night a vast storm came up from the mouth of the river, a black, swirling mass of clouds like a monster huge enough to smother the world, lumbering on a thousand flickering, fiery legs. The river, the very marshes, raged like the frenzied chaos-ocean that existed before the Earth was made, while the sky thundered light and dark; and for an instant you could see for miles across froth-capped waves and reeds lashing in the wind; then there was only utter blackness and stinging rain and the thunder once more, thunder calling out my father’s name again and again.

  He answered it, from within his secret room, his voice as loud as the thunder, speaking a language that did not sound like human speech at all, but shrieks and grating cackles and whistles like the raging wind.

  In the morning, all the ships were scattered and half the city was blasted away. The air was heavy with the cries of mourners. The river ran beneath our house muddy and furious where before it had been mere shallows.

  Many people saw the crocodile-headed messengers of the Devouring God that day. My sister and I sat in our room, almost afraid to speak even to each other. We could not go out.

  From Father’s workroom there was only silence that went on for so long that, despite everything. I began to fear for him. I met Hamakina’s gaze, and she stared back, wide-eyed and dazed. Then she nodded.

  I went to the workroom door and knocked.

  “Father? Are you all right?”

  To my surprise, he opened the door at once and came out. He steadied himself against the doorway with one hand and hung there, breathing heavily. His hands were gnarled, like claws. They looked like they had been burned. His face was so pale, so wild, that part of me wasn’t even sure it was Father until he spoke.

  “I am going to die,” he said. “It is time for me to go to the gods.” And, again despite everything, I wept for him.

  “Now you must be a faithful son for the last time,” he said. “Gather reeds and bind them together into a funeral boat. When you are done, I shall be dead. Place me in it and set me adrift, so that I shall come, as all men do, to Surat-Kemad.”

  “No, Father! It isn’t so!”

  When I wept, I was remembering him as he had been in my early childhood, not as he had become.

  He squeezed my shoulder hard and hissed angrily, “Quite inevitably, it is. Go!”

  So Hamakina and I went together. Somehow our house had lost only a few shingles in the storm, and the dock below the trapdoor was still there. My boat was too, but sunken and dangling from its line. We struggled to pull it up, dumped it out, and set it afloat. Miraculously, not even the paddles had been lost.

&nb
sp; We climbed in and paddled in silence for about an hour, far enough into the marshes that the waters were again shallow and still and reeds as thick as my arm swayed against the sky like trees. With a hatchet I’d brought along for the purpose, I cut down several, and Hamakina and I labored throughout the day to make a crude boat. In the evening, we towed it back to our house.

  I ascended the ladder first, while she waited fearfully below. For the first time I could remember, the door to Father’s workroom was left open. He lay inside, on a couch amid shelves of books and bottles, and at a glance I knew that he was dead.

  There was little to do that night. Hamakina and I made a cold supper out of what we could find in the pantry. Then we barred the windows and doors, and pushed a heavy trunk over the trapdoor, lest the evatim crawl up and devour the corpse, as they sometimes do.

  I explored the workroom only a little, going through Father’s books, opening trunks, peering into coffers. If he had any treasure, I didn’t find it. Then I picked up a murky bottle and something inside screamed at me with a tiny, faraway voice. I dropped the bottle in fright. It broke and the screaming thing scurried across the floorboards.

  The house was full of voices and noises, creakings, whispers, and sighs. Once something heavy, like a huge bird perhaps, flapped and scraped against a shuttered window. My sister and I stayed up most of the night, lanterns in our hands, armed with clubs against whatever terrors the darkness might hold. I sat on the floor outside the workroom, leaning against the door. Hamakina lay with her face in my lap, sobbing softly.

  Eventually I fell asleep, and Mother came to me in a dream, leaning over me, dripping water and river mud, shrieking and tearing her hair. I tried to tell her that all would be well, that I would take care of Hamakina, that I would grow up to be a scribe and write letters for people. I promised I wouldn’t be like Father. But still she wept and paced back and forth all night. In the morning, the floor was wet and muddy.

  Hamakina and I rose, washed, put on our best clothes, and went to the priests. On the way, some people turned their backs to us while others screamed curses and called us murderers. In the square before the temple, a mob approached with knives and clubs, and I waved my hands and made what I hoped looked like magical gestures until they turned and fled, shouting that I was just as bad as my Father. In that single instant, I almost wished I were.