He took out his pocket handkerchief and got down on his hands and knees. With George's cheerful supervision, he scrubbed at the parquetry until every trace of previous figures was gone.
He sat back on his haunches. 'How's that?' he asked George.
George was leaning against the wall, arms folded on his chest. He cocked his head. 'You missed a tiny bit near your right knee. Apart from that, you've done enough to suggest you'll be a wonderful charlady one day. Outstanding, using a silk cleaning cloth like that.'
Aubrey stood and dusted off his knees. 'Admirable though charladies are, my ambitions go a bit further.'
George dropped his arms. 'I say, old man, this isn't about ambition again, is it?'
'George, don't you have dreams, goals? There's so much I want to do that the hardest thing is to decide what to try first.'
'I'll wager that you've been specifically told not to do this,' George said gloomily.
'Sorry to disappoint you, but I haven't.' Not that I'd let that stop me if it was important enough. 'Mr Ellwood simply said that this was a forbidden area of magic.'
'Aha!'
'But he didn't say we weren't allowed to explore it.'
George looked unconvinced. 'Explore what?'
Aubrey had hoped to avoid telling George this, but his friend had left him no choice. 'Death magic.'
George's eyes went wide. 'You're joking.'
'It's perfectly safe, George. I just want to do some simple experimenting, and then document my findings. There's been nothing done in this area for ages!'
'With good reason, I'd say.'
Aubrey began to pace the length of the narrow room, his hands behind his back. 'But it's so crucial! Death magic impinges on the whole question of the Nature of Magic. How does humanity create this remarkable magical force? At what point do we stop creating it? It's our very place in the universe that's at stake here!'
'And if you can find something useful, you'll make a name for yourself?'
'I never said I wasn't ambitious, George.'
'And you can do this? Safely?'
'It's all under control,' Aubrey said, waving a hand. 'This isn't some primitive hocus-pocus we're talking about. This is a rational, empirical exploration of natural forces. I can do it.'
'Aubrey, you think you can do anything.'
Aubrey didn't even answer this. He stood in the middle of the room, mapping out in his mind the complex diagram he was about to draw. At the same time, he was rehearsing the elements in the spell, making sure he had them all memorised.
The outcome Aubrey wanted for this spell was quite simple. The laws for death magic had never been quantified and clearly expressed. Throughout history, it was an area of magic only attempted by the mad, the desperate or the depraved. The results – when recorded – had been horrible beyond belief. Sacrifice, massacre and insanity stalked the murky history of death magic, with practitioners who survived being shunned. And yet, because it dealt with the threshold between being and unbeing, death magic held the prospect of uncovering much – perhaps the fundamental nature of magic itself.
Aubrey wanted to see if he could establish some parameters for safely dealing with death magic. If he could determine limiting factors, ways to shield an experimenter probing this area, it could be of incalculable worth. He could turn death magic into life magic and open a whole new field for research.
He put his hands together and prepared to cast a spell that would momentarily put him in a state of death.
When he'd first contemplated this, he was quick to discard it as foolishly dangerous. Then, after the notion refused to go away, he decided that people suffered worse every day. Hearts stopped and were restarted, with no ill effects. People were discovered not breathing and revived none the worse for wear. Eventually he decided that, although some risk was part of this procedure, it was reduced by careful preparation. Aubrey was proposing a spell which would stop his life for an instant, much less than a heartbeat, much less than the time between one tick of the clock and the next, and then he would resume his normal state. He would be stepping across from life to death and back again in a perfectly controlled way. A well-thought-out, careful, rational procedure from which he'd eliminated the danger.
His heart began to pound, apparently not convinced.
He got down on his hands and knees again and began drawing the first of the many-sided figures on the floor. It was soothing, familiar work, but – despite his confidence – he felt his nervousness increasing. His throat grew dry, but his palms were sweaty and the chalk became slippery in his fingers.
Somewhere between tracing the second and third interlocking figures, Aubrey's stomach began to knot. It was like the feeling he had before a performance on stage, but it gripped more fiercely. He winced.
'You all right?' George asked from his vantage point in the corner of the room nearest the door.
'Fine, fine,' Aubrey muttered, but vowed to hide any further discomfort from his friend.
When he had finished, Aubrey stood and dusted his hands. He slipped the tiny nubbin of chalk into his pocket. 'Done.'
George frowned. 'Looks like some of those mathematical curvy things . . .'
'Parabolas?'
'They're the ones. You've got a bunch of them trying to dance with some sort of lopsided stars. And you've thrown in a few twisty rings for good measure. Very nice.'
'Thanks, George. I'll see if I can get you a spot as one of the judges for the next school Art Show.' He drew a breath and tried to slow his racing heart. It felt as if it was knocking on his ribcage and trying to get out. 'Now, keep your distance and whatever happens, don't interfere. It's all perfectly safe, but the focusing figure will confine the effects of the spell, regardless.'
'That's reassuring,' George muttered. 'Perfectly safe, you say?'
'Perfectly.'
'As safe as the time you made that set of wings out of cardboard?'
'That was a long time ago. Now, I need some quiet. I must concentrate.'
Most of the language for the spell was derived from ancient Sumerian, but the difficult middle section was a variation of an Akkadian spell he'd found recorded in an ancient text lent to him by a friend of the family. The Akkadian spell was mostly nonsense, but Aubrey had been excited by what he saw as some extremely useful, but throat-straining, elements which he couldn't wait to link with two fragments of Latin spells that dealt with death magic in an oblique way. He'd found these Latin spells misfiled under 'Hearth Magic' in the National Library on one of his frequent research trips to the city.
He rubbed his hands on the legs of his trousers. He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. He began his spell.
He spoke firmly, striving for perfect enunciation and articulation and no hesitation, leaving no room for uncertainty in constants, variables or the transitions between them. Each element in the spell had to be perfect for his manipulation of the magical force to work as planned. It was like building an arch, where each block depended on the other. If any was to fail, the whole structure would collapse.
The unfamiliar syllables twisted in his mouth, as if they were reluctant to be uttered, but he formed them and spat them out, one after the other. He could feel sweat springing from his brow, but he didn't spare time to wipe it.
He came to the last three elements – one for duration, one for intensity and the last a 'signature', a unique item that made the spell his own. He felt a moment of doubt, but he thrust it aside and pronounced each component crisply.
As soon as the last element left his lips, Aubrey knew something had gone wrong. He was plunged into blackness, utter nothingness, then pain seized him, a shattering, all-consuming agony that tore a howl from his lips. His mind reeled. It was a raw, overwhelming shock, as if he had been flung against something hard, dropped into ice water, smashed between hot irons, slashed by a thousand razors, rolled in acid. He felt as if a great beast was shaking him by the neck, as if he were being squeezed through a hole the size of a pencil, pummelled,
flayed, burnt alive. It was beyond a simple physical sensation. He was torn apart and exposed, beyond hope and beyond help.
With a final wrench which seemed to upend the whole universe, the pain suddenly stopped. It was replaced by an insistent tugging sensation. Aubrey was able to see again, but his mind recoiled from what he saw.
He was looking at his own body, collapsed on the floor.
It took him a giddy moment of denial and confusion, but he knew that his soul had been separated from his body.
His vantage point seemed to be somewhere near the ceiling. George had approached the boundary of the focusing figure and was looking distressed. His mouth was working, but his words were muffled, unclear. Aubrey wondered if his hearing had been affected by the spell. Hovering, he noticed that something was wrong with the focusing figure, but he couldn't determine exactly what it was. Something to do with duration, intensity?
In the midst of a sense of dislocation that could be like no other, Aubrey found time to berate himself – for heedless bravado, for reckless posturing and for shoddy preparation. His anger blazed, then he quelled it. He had other charges, but they'd have to wait. Methodically, he began to search for a remedy for his stupidity.
His body looked forlorn, crumpled as it was. His dark hair was obscuring one side of his face and he wanted to reach out and push it back.
With what? he wondered. He turned his attention and discovered what a soul looks like.
He told himself it was a failure of imagination, or perhaps simply a handy representation using available materials, but his soul looked just like the body he'd left crumpled on the floor, down to the tweed jacket and high-waisted trousers. He found he was actually disappointed that, apart from a level of insubstantiality, it wasn't more startling in form.
Interestingly, his soul-self was holding a translucent golden cord tight in its right hand. It was stretched taut and was the source of the tugging sensation, which was a deep, nagging feeling at a most fundamental level, far below conscious thought. He groped for a comparison and the nearest he could come was the need to breathe.
Aubrey was doing his best to cope with the sense of displacement he was experiencing. Terror threatened to envelop him, but he kept it at bay thinking rationally. If he could observe things carefully, he was sure he could work out a solution.
Then he traced where the golden cord led and he felt like a man whose house had been invaded by assailants, who had then been kidnapped, stripped, beaten, and imprisoned, before being told that all his family had died. It was an almost unbearable shock on top of a series of almost unbearable shocks.
A void had replaced one of the longer walls of the room. The other end of the cord disappeared into it. Pearly-grey tinged with silver, like massy clouds caught by sunlight, the void was in motion, boiling and turning, and he was being drawn towards it by the tugging on his golden cord.
In an instant of complete apprehension, Aubrey knew that the true death lay on the other side, the place from where no traveller returns. His current state, this soulself floating above his erstwhile body, was a halfway stage, a moment to pause (for reflection?) before the final departure.
No, he thought. This is not right. He tried to let go of the golden cord and found he couldn't. He shook, but his fingers remained wrapped around the mysterious cord. He could shift his grip, he could move along it, but otherwise the cord was as much a part of him as his hand was.
Aubrey twisted, trying to turn away. It felt as if he were trapped in a river, fighting against a strong current. He thrashed, struggling to resist the tidal pull of the way that he'd inadvertently opened, straining to increase the distance between the void and him.
In his flailings, he came to face downwards, towards his vacated body. Another golden cord lay in its hand. The end of this cord was flapping loose, as if it had recently been severed, between Aubrey's soul-self and his body. It drifted in the air, but it was losing its vitality and colour. Even as he watched, Aubrey could see it coiling back on itself, the loose end falling back to drape over his body lying on the floor.
Aubrey didn't think. He lunged for the loose end, but the cord in his right hand pulled back. The pull from the void was growing stronger. Inch by inch, the void was drawing him towards it.
Suddenly, the irresistible pull eased. Aubrey jerked around to see that George had ignored his instructions and had blundered through the focusing diagram, scuffing it with his shoes.
Aubrey gathered himself and dived towards the receding end of the golden cord. He seized it with his left hand, but nearly let go when he was convulsed with a familiar pain; it was the wrenching that had marked the separation of his soul and his body. But having felt it once, this time he was less overwhelmed by it. Despite being racked by spasms, he didn't let go of the cord in his left hand.
Below, Aubrey glimpsed George working frantically on his motionless body. The golden cord leading from it was becoming fainter. The one in his right hand was vibrant and glowing, and still tugging at him. Aubrey's soul was caught between his body and true death, suspended on the ultimate brink.
He knew that he couldn't remain like this, in an unnatural halfway state. The void was urgent, insistent. He found himself wondering about what lay on the other side of the opening. Perhaps it was a chance to find out the answer to the greatest mystery of all.
Later, he said to himself. It's not the time for that now. He ran through spells in his mind. He wanted something to spring from all his reading, all his wide research, something that would save him.
It came to him. It was a humble spell, a piece of everyday magic that he'd learned so long ago that he'd forgotten where. It was a spell to splice the ends of a rope together.
Aubrey ran through the spell in his mind and realised it wasn't enough. It needed strengthening. He realised, wryly, that he needed to splice some elements of his death magic spell into a spell that dealt with splicing. Even then, it would only be temporary – but a temporary respite from being taken by the true death would do, for now.
He lined up all the elements. He inserted the variables. He organised the limits and specified the parameters. Aubrey felt as certain about this spell as he had of anything he'd done. All that remained was to see if a soul could utter a spell.
Aubrey brought the two ends of the golden cord together. He pronounced the spell, the short, sharp syllables marching off his soul-tongue. With a burst of wild, fierce relief, he saw the two extremities of the golden cord fuse together, ends interweaving in a way that would make a sailor proud.
The cord leading from his body began to fill out, regaining colour, strengthening and tautening even as he looked at it. He still could not release his grip from it, however, and he was caught holding the entire cord two-handed, with the dreadful pull of the open way on his right.
He refused to be taken. This was premature and he was not going to let a moment's stupidity be the end of him. He would save himself. Gone was any thought of complicated spells. He slipped his left hand along the golden cord, hauling himself towards his inert body. Then he dragged his right hand until it met his left. He kept his head turned away from the awful void, but he could feel its attraction. It pulled at him with the force of destiny.
No, Aubrey vowed. I will not go.
It became a test of his will. Aubrey had to force himself, inch by inch, away from the other side. Every infinitesimal gain was achieved against the awful pull from behind. He dared not look up as he edged his hands along the golden cord, gripping and releasing, slipping back and then moving forward, moving away from the void and towards reuniting his body and soul.
An eternity passed, and another. A thousand times Aubrey contemplated giving up and a thousand times he rejected it. Nothing distracted him from his goal and he promised himself he would maintain his laborious progress until the end of time if that was what it took.
Finally, he looked up to see that he was close to the outflung hand of his motionless body. An almighty effort, a lunge, a horrify
ing moment when he thought he was going to fall short, then –
Agony. He felt as if he was putting on a suit of red-hot armour. Every fibre of his being burned. His nerves hummed at the farthest extremity of pain. He gasped and opened his eyes, then realised he'd been able to do both. He looked up to see George glaring at him.
'George,' he mumbled. He was weak, new-born. The floor felt hard beneath him. The sharp smell of ozone hung in the air. Aubrey found himself looking for thunderstorms.' Remember: interfere whenever you want to.'
George let out a sigh and Aubrey felt his friend's grip on his shoulders tighten. 'What happened?'
'I died. More or less.'
George looked flummoxed. 'You're better now?'
Good question, Aubrey thought. He felt bloodless, feeble, as if he'd been ill for a very long time. He used his magical senses to examine himself. 'Ah. Well. Not entirely.'
'What do you mean?'
Aubrey glanced at the focusing figure. Yes, something was definitely awry there. 'I think I'm still dead, old man. Technically.'
'Technically dead?'
'My sloppy spell-casting opened the door to my true death, and it hasn't closed. At the moment, I've brought my body and soul back together, but the true death is calling.' He still felt it – a deep-seated inner summoning.
'I've stopped things, for the time being, but I'm afraid it's only temporary.' He shook his head, then bit his lip and looked away as emotion threatened to overwhelm him. 'I'm sorry, George. I've overstepped myself, rather.'
George gripped his shoulder. 'You'll figure out something, I'm sure of it. Besides, you've been in worse spots.'
Aubrey turned and stared at his friend. 'Worse spots? Worse than being dead?'
George scratched his head. 'Well, I'm not, I mean, I didn't exactly mean . . .'
Aubrey watched his friend with gratitude. George's support was enough to bring him around to face his situation. Inaction – never his friend – would in this case probably prove fatal. 'Help me up, George. I need to get to my books. I have to close that door.'
Blaze of Glory Page 3
