Summoned

by Anne M. Pillsworth

  Abandoned? Yes. Where Helen and Geldman stood, the pharmacy remained alive and well. Beyond them, it had gone dark, because the windows were opaque with grime and the door was boarded over with warped plywood. The scale now lay inside, face smashed, one more piece of garbage on the dust-furred tiles.

  “Mr. Wyndham has gone for his coffee,” Geldman said. “Shall we?”

  He had opened a half door in the counter. Helen turned from the abrupt wreckage and passed through it. She stepped aside to let Geldman take the lead. He walked down a corridor with closed doors to either side and a closed door at its end.

  Geldman opened the end door.

  19

  From the stutter of overhead fluorescents, Helen walked into a parlor lit by candles in sconces, candles in chandeliers, candles in silver and crystal sticks. The army of tapers redoubled their flames in a dozen ormolu mirrors. Two armchairs and a tea table stood before a hearth ablaze with votives. Flocked red paper covered the walls, red velvet curtains a pair of windows that had to overlook the gangway. Convenient for Jeremy, if he needed to stage a rescue. He wouldn’t. Helen stood on the mild wilderness of a carpet like a woven forest, at ease, almost at home. To her left, next to an ebony secretary laden with books, was a stairwell. To her right, behind one of the armchairs, was a brass perch on which bobbed a raven-like bird, all glossy black except for its white bib.

  Geldman took the armchair over which the bird presided. Helen sank into the other, and the cushions plumped and gave, molding themselves to her particular curves.

  To the bird, Geldman said, “Please tell Cybele we’d like tea.”

  It flapped up the stairwell. “Corvus albus,” Geldman said. “The African pied crow. This one’s my familiar.”

  Well, if frankness was to be the order of the day. “So you are a magician, Mr. Geldman?”

  “Or a wizard, sorcerer, witch. I’m not fussy about the label, although you’ll find that many are. Wizard is my preference, since it derives from wise. Like yourself, Ms. Arkwright, I aspire to wisdom.”

  “You seem to know a lot about me.”

  “I know what I’ve seen in you.”

  “Is it what you see in someone that decides whether this place is open for him?”

  Geldman smiled. “It depends on both the person and the situation.”

  “Why did you hide it from me the other day?”

  “Sean’s father and uncle were there. Also, you needed to learn more about Sean’s dilemma before we spoke.”

  “You know what’s happening to him?”

  “I know he’s summoned a blood-spawn.”

  Even here, in the sanctuary of the parlor, anger sparked in her. Geldman knew how much trouble Sean was in, he was partly responsible for the trouble, and yet he’d stayed in hiding to await further developments?

  She opened her mouth. Geldman raised a hand. “One moment, please.”

  Like a herald, the crow flew out of the stairwell croaking, “Tea! Tea! Tea!” By the time it had resettled itself, a girl of ten or so appeared at the bend of the stairs, carrying a silver tray. She looked at Helen with open curiosity; Helen looked back equally unabashed, struck by the porcelain delicacy of the girl’s face, the flax blond of her hip-length hair and flax-flower blue of her eyes. She wore a sleeveless white shift. Her feet were bare and so white they glowed.

  Geldman went to take the tray. “Thank you, Cybele.”

  The girl continued to gaze at Helen.

  Geldman touched Cybele’s forearm with his elbow. “Go up. You haven’t finished your reading.”

  Cybele retreated around the bend. Helen heard the swift patter of her feet up the steps.

  Geldman put the tray on the table between them. It was arranged as daintily as a photo in a decorating magazine: white tea service, white linen napkins, silver spoons, and a plate of tiny white-iced scones embellished with candied violets. As Geldman poured, laughter boiled up Helen’s throat. There was no bile in it, but it wasn’t clean laughter, either—it had too much of reaction in it, reaction to her interrupted anger, reaction to the terror of the last two days, reaction even to the wonder of parlor and familiar and angelic young food stylist. And the candles. Though they’d been burning at least since Helen had entered the room, none was diminished, none showed a drop of wax run down its side.

  The laughter came up shrill. Helen stifled it behind her hand.

  Geldman placed a cup of tea before her. She pressed her hand harder against her mouth, while Geldman presented the crow with a scone. It dropped the scane into the perch seed cup and pecked with a connoisseur’s air. “Excuse me,” she whispered at last.

  “There’s nothing to excuse.”

  She steadied her cup on the saucer. The tea was summer fragrant; the smell alone calmed her, so that she didn’t get hysterical again at her genteel remark of, “Cybele’s an unusual name. A goddess, wasn’t she?”

  “From the Neolithic Anatolians to the Roman worshipers of Magna Mater and beyond.”

  Helen sipped tea: lavender, rosemary, thyme, other sweet and bitter herbs her taste buds couldn’t identify. It was like a liquid distillation of the physic garden in Jeremy’s window, or of the garden Kate had actually planted in their yard. “Is she your daughter?”

  “After a fashion.”

  Geldman’s smile didn’t alter, but heavy lids hooded his eyes. There were questions he wouldn’t answer, which was just as well. If Helen hared after everything that beckoned in this new world, she’d forget her business. Sean, Jeremy, the Chomskys, they couldn’t afford that. She couldn’t afford it. “How did you find out what’s going on with Sean?”

  “A colleague of mine has been testing him. It’s his affair, really.”

  Geldman poured himself tea with such graceful nonchalance that Helen’s fingers tightened on the fragile rim of her saucer. As if in response, the cup exhaled fresh fragrance, which enticed her to drink and be soothed. “I suppose your ‘colleague’ is Redemption Orne.”

  “Reverend Orne, yes.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “That would be a long story, Ms. Arkwright.”

  “Then tell me what I need to know.”

  Geldman set down the teapot. “First, let me assure you he’s no impostor. He’s the same man who came to Arkham in 1690.”

  “How has he lived so long?”

  “Wizards have many ways to extend their lives. To discuss Orne’s method would be a professional indiscretion. Suffice it to say, he’s made excellent use of his time. He’s a master among masters.”

  “Is he your master, Mr. Geldman?”

  The crow cawed at her. Geldman laughed. “Be still, Boaz. No, Orne isn’t my master. Nor am I his. But our paths have often intersected, even when they’ve had different goals.”

  “Are you suggesting Orne is a dark wizard?”

  “Are you suggesting I’m a light one?”

  Was she? “I’m not afraid of you.”

  Geldman bowed. “The dichotomy of dark and light is simplistic, but in the way of magic I follow doing harm diminishes one’s power. Reverend Orne labors under no such restriction. He’s done harm, even murder. Still, I know he’d prefer to avoid violence.”

  The mollifying tea didn’t bar reasonable doubt from her mind. “Orne’s a murderer, but you’re not his enemy?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Why should you?” Geldman’s voice was fond, a favorite uncle’s. “You’ve just come among us. But I assure you Orne doesn’t want to hurt Sean. Quite the opposite. He wants to foster the boy.”

  “So it’s true he wanted Sean, not just anyone interested enough in magic to be looking through the books in Horrocke’s back room.”

  “Sean, no other.”

  “How did he know Sean would ever go to that bookstore? How did he know exactly where to put the book and clipping, so Sean would find them?”

  Geldman eyed the ceiling or, perhaps, the tip of Boaz’s beak, for the crow hung head down,
jabbering in a language full of gutturals and sibilants. When it had finished and returned to its scone, Geldman said, “Orne has been watching Sean for many years, mostly through a familiar like the one he meant Sean to summon.”

  “An aether-newt? One Orne’s made invisible?”

  “Just so. And once Sean reached apprentice age, Orne had only to create the lure—the clipping—and have his newt topple it into the boy’s hand at some convenient moment. If Sean didn’t take the lure, he wasn’t ready for the test. But if he did take it—”

  “Which he did.”

  “Then Orne would propose the test.”

  Questions jostled pell-mell in her head. “But—how did Orne find Sean in the first place?”

  Geldman finished his tea before asking a question of his own: “Before you returned to Arkham to work in the library, you hadn’t studied magic?”

  “Not at all. Assume I’m ignorant.”

  “I’ll assume you’re an intelligent young woman and that you’ve already wondered about the part genetics plays in magical aptitude. Inheritance is crucial, but full expression of aptitude depends on complex gene interactions and environmental stimuli. Also, there may be bursts of magicians in families, two or three in as many generations. Then the trait may go dormant for so long that the birth of a new magician seems like a singular occurrence. However, we magicians do track the known bloodlines. Reverend Orne’s been following the line that comes to Sean through his mother. He tells me this bloodline’s produced several apt individuals over the centuries, Sean being the most promising yet.”

  So Kate Wyndham was the source of Sean’s ability. How would Jeremy react to that news? Helen shook her head.

  “Ms. Arkwright?”

  “It makes sense, but it’s so new.”

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t burden you with more.”

  No backing off now. “What more? I need to know, Mr. Geldman.”

  “Sean isn’t Orne’s only object. Your inheritance interests him as well.”

  Helen put down her cup and saucer too quickly, and they rang in musical protest. The last of her tea put forth its alluring bouquet, but she resisted the urge to drink the edge off her alarm. “My inheritance?”

  “You’ve inherited more than the Arkwright House, you see. You’ve also inherited your uncle’s aptitude, and your great-grandfather’s. It was Henry Arkwright who restored your line’s reputation for paramagic. John, too, was a capable paramagician. However, Orne has even higher hopes for you.”

  Geldman paused. Helen couldn’t speak. He added: “I concur with the Reverend’s opinion.”

  Paramagician was a term she’d seen in her reading, something to do with receptivity to magical energy without the ability to shape and use it on one’s own—all she’d really grasped was that paramagicians could assist magicians and deploy magical items prepared for them. It hadn’t sounded like a glamorous profession. “You’ve got to be wrong,” Helen said.

  “I’m not. I’ve sensed your aptitude myself, which is why I’ve allowed you to see the pharmacy as it is, whole. Reverend Orne’s assessment of you is another proof, and finally, you’ve become a curator of the Arcane Studies Archives. Since Henry’s time, the curators have always been magicians or paramagicians. The Order requires it.”

  Helen raised her hands in surrender. “Order?”

  “The Order of Alhazred.”

  “I’ve never heard of it, Mr. Geldman!”

  Boaz croaked: “Abdul’s! Abdul’s Irregulars! Go to, liar, go to, go to!”

  With an abstracted wave of his hand, Geldman silenced the crow. “Ah, I see. Professor Marvell hasn’t told you about the Order yet.”

  “You know Professor Marvell.”

  “Of course.”

  “He’s a wizard, too?”

  “Oh no. A profound scholar of magic, but in practice only paramagical.”

  That was a relief—she knew one person who wasn’t a full-fledged sorcerer. Though apparently he was a member of a secret society. “What is this Order?”

  “I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I wouldn’t have, if I’d known you were entirely uninitiated. You must ask Marvell.”

  “He’s off in the mountains in Scotland. I can’t get hold of him, and I need help now. Sean needs help.”

  Geldman leaned forward and spoke with quiet emphasis: “I’ll do whatever I may, Ms. Arkwright. Believe me.”

  All right, focus. Let this Order of Alhazred go, and magical genetics, and even her own supposed aptitude. Sean first. “Tell me how to dismiss the Servitor.”

  “That’s one of the things I may not do. Orne has set Sean the task of dismissing it, and Sean has turned to you. I think Orne may have intended that as well.”

  After his promise to help, Geldman’s refusal bit deep. “I don’t care what Orne’s set us to do! And why should you care? You said he wasn’t your master.”

  “He isn’t. But I won’t interfere in his business.”

  In the candlelit parlor, Helen sat in the park with Jeremy; that’s how strongly the memory took her. She saw sun on the roofs and spires and domes of Providence. She heard her own voice, saying that it wasn’t Orne who gave Sean the incantation for the blood-spawn, it was the Black Man. “Are you afraid of Orne?” she said. “Or are you afraid of his master? Of Nyarlathotep?”

  Geldman didn’t draw back or blanch, but his heavy lids drooped farther, like gates closing over his eyes. “I’d be afraid of Orne if I crossed him. As for his master, I have nothing to do with him.”

  At the sound of a footstep on the stairs, Helen twisted to her left. It had to be Orne (or even the Black Man), coming down right on cue. Instead it was Cybele, standing at the turn. A harsh moan made Helen twist back toward Geldman, but it was Boaz who moaned, swaying on his perch. “He’s a lion; be vigilant,” the crow said. “He’s walking about. He’s hungry, so he walks, and walking makes him hungrier.”

  “True enough, Boaz,” Geldman said. “Luckily, the Reverend doesn’t mean to devour Sean. If you can’t reach Marvell, Ms. Arkwright, you’d better talk directly to Orne.”

  The crow’s eerie litany had sounded familiar, and Geldman’s use of the word devour fixed the reference for her. In the Bible, it was the Devil who walked about, seeking whom he might devour. “How do I get to him?”

  “I have the means.” Geldman rose. “If you’ll step over here.”

  From the direction of the stairwell and Cybele, a warm breeze fanned Helen’s hair while leaving the multitude of candle flames unperturbed. She looked toward Cybele, who nodded, the slightest fall and rise of her chin, but that was enough to make Helen trail Geldman to the secretary. He folded back ivory-inlaid doors that had hidden a deep desk well. In it was a manual typewriter, an ancient Royal as glossy black as Boaz. Beveled glass windows in the sides displayed the internal mechanisms. Silver type-fingers and tape reels sat exposed on top.

  “Unlike the Reverend, I don’t take to every new device,” Geldman said. “I bought this in 1914, the first year it was made, and I’ve never had to buy another.”

  “You want me to type a letter to Orne?”

  “No. A moment.”

  He opened a drawer and took out a sheet of white bond, which he wound into the typewriter. Then he brought together the top and bottom edges of the sheet and ran a forefinger along the seam. Helen blinked. The edges had fused: The sheet was now a cylinder that would continuously feed. “What about when this one gets full?” she said.

  “It won’t. Type: ‘Hello, Reverend Orne.’ He should answer shortly.”

  Answer? But Helen typed. The keys were unexpectedly responsive. The type-fingers flew, clacking crisply against the paper, and Hello, Rev. Orne appeared, rich black on the virgin white field.

  The keys under her fingers plunged. Helen started back. Her greeting vanished from the paper and, all on its own, the Royal clacked out: Hello, Helen. I’m glad to meet you at last.

  The Royal fell still. Gingerly Helen positioned her fingers over the keys and typed:
I’m glad to reach you, Reverend.

  As soon as she lifted her fingers, the typewriter clacked away. Her typing faded as Orne’s response appeared: I hoped you’d consult our friend, Mr. Geldman, and that he’d bring us together.

  When the keys stilled, she typed. Before long the rhythm of typing and lifting her hands became automatic. Mr. Geldman says you’re interested in Sean because he has magical potential. Is that right?

  Yes, and he’s already proven how great his potential is. I look forward to you doing the same.

  As a paramagician?

  Exactly. Do you remember why you decided to consult Jeremy Wyndham about your library windows?

  My uncle. He left some notes about restoring them. Jeremy’s name was first on his list of possible consultants.

  I wanted to establish a connection between you and the Wyndhams. So I left you those notes, in your uncle’s hand.

  A forgery? Delivered by one of your familiars?

  I confess it.

  Why not? It was the least of Orne’s sins. Your point was?

  To make it easier for Sean to appeal to someone at Miskatonic University if he needed access to the Archives. I hoped he might appeal to you and so you’d be drawn into the test. If you were worth testing.

  She had lived up to Orne’s expectations. Did he expect her to feel proud, instead of manipulated? Maybe it was her turn to play games. You knew all along you weren’t going to give Sean the dismissing ritual?

  A brief pause. Then, I intended him to learn how to dismiss the aether-newt himself or else to learn how to make it a useful companion. Then he told me he’d summoned the blood-spawn, which I never intended. There had been interference with my plan

  Helen experimented, dropping her fingers onto the keys. Yes, that stopped Orne’s communication, and she was able to type Your MASTER interfered. Nyarlathotep. He came to Sean during the ritual as the Black Man.

  She hoped that Orne’s longer pause meant he was squirming. Your deduction is correct, Helen. Sometimes the Master of Magic does respond in person to calls for his intervention. Sometimes he doesn’t intervene as one might hope.