by Dan Davis
Weaver flung herself from Artemis and landed heavily but she got her hands into the dirt. The power thrummed through her, out of her guts and down her arms into the good soil. It pulsed out and out and the ground rumbled and bucked. It turned into something like liquid, like clay, to be moulded with her mind.
She threw up a rolling wave of earth toward the charging Cavaliers. When it reached them, they cried out and tried to ride away. But Weaver’s mind was faster than any horse. The earth bank she made tossed the enemy up, scattering men and horses in a cloud of earth and stone. The soil bank crashed down upon them, like the breaking of a wave in a storm.
She felt bad for the horses but there was no time to worry because more were coming from the west, the trees where the muskets had fired from. The horsemen must have dismounted to fire their volley shoulder to shoulder and now they had mounted to finish off Smith’s men.
Captain Smith was pulling his men back into line and she saw he was going to charge them even though he was outnumbered two to one. He saw the devastation she had caused to the attack on his flank so he ordered his men to withdraw back to behind Weaver.
The Cavaliers had checked their charge at the sight of their company being thrown back with magic. But they were brave men because they hesitated then charged anyway.
As the last of her men — Captain Smith — rode behind her, she sent another wide wave of power through the earth, a bank as high as a man on horseback travelling through the earth faster than it could be outrun. It smashed through the second line just as it had the first in a shower of dirt and stone and grass. Men and horses fell screaming.
Her own men were cheering as Gore and his men rode by to smash into the survivors who had not been unhorsed. There was the clash of arms on armour and helmets and the banging of pistols. It was a one-sided fight. Gore was a brutal and efficient soldier.
One of the men lead Artemis back to her and Weaver remounted. Then it was her company chasing down the remnants of the Cavaliers who had lured them into the village of Naseby.
Weaver was up front, Artemis was charging ahead of the bigger, heavier horses in the company, her hooves thundering on the damp earth. The wind was warm on Weaver’s skin. Her horse’s mane rippled and flicked in the air. The feeling of it flowed through the horse’s strong body.
Weaver pulled on the reins and Artemis drew to a stop on top of a hill. Something felt strange. It was like a rumbling in her guts but it was coming from somewhere else like somewhere far away.
She dismounted.
‘No time for emptying your bowels, Weaver,’ Sergeant Gore said as he rode up beside her. ‘We have them on the run.’
‘Shut up, Gore,’ Weaver said and stuck her hands deep into the earth. It was dry up on the hill and it scratched and scraped the skin on her hands.
Captain Smith swerved over to her. ‘You feel something, Weaver?’ He ordered the rest of the company to slow and spread out to cover them.
‘Quiet,’ she said. ‘Sir.’
The rumbling, pounding, drumming feeling came flowing through every piece of dirt, every rock and stone through her skin and into her guts. It was a familiar feeling. She closed her eyes and felt the pounding of the earth. It was as though she could see through the ground. A picture formed in her mind of the thousands of feet and hooves that were making this rumbling flow through the ground. It felt just like the New Model Army felt under her feet every day.
Only she knew that Cromwell’s army was miles behind them to the south. This rumbling, this army was away to the north.
‘It’s them,’ she said.
‘The Cavalier company?’ Smith asked.
Sergeant Gore scoffed. ‘We know where they are, girl and we’re losing them. On your pony, before it’s too late.’
‘The King’s Army,’ she said to Captain Smith. ‘I can feel the King’s Army through the earth.’
Smith’s face lit up with joy. ‘Where away? How far?’
‘Don’t know,’ Weaver said. ‘Not far. Maybe five miles? Less?’
‘So close?’ Smith said.
‘Fantasies of a silly girl, sir.’ Gore said.
‘Maybe, Sergeant, maybe,’ Captain Smith said, betraying her utterly. ‘But you’ve just seen, once again, what she can do. She saved my life and she perhaps saved the whole troop. Forget catching that Cavalier company. We shall go slowly. It may be that if we are truly as close to the King’s army that they are leading us into another ambush anyway. We will pull the men in close enough to support each other.’
Gore scowled and rode off to relay the orders to the men.
Smith nodded at her. ‘If you are right and you have found the King’s Army then I reckon Cromwell will make you a colonel. Mount up. You’re with me.’
They rode slowly forward. There were enemy patrols everywhere so they kept to the trees. After a while, they crested a rise with a farm and outbuildings scattered about the hill. The people that lived there must have been hiding indoors or run away. If so, that was sensible after what Weaver had seen the men of her company do to the villagers of Naseby.
At the top of the hill, they looked out across a huge dip like a deep valley and on the far hill and beyond there was an entire army camped. Thousands and thousands of men and horse and wood smoke and the foul stench of latrines pits and dung.
The King’s Army.
‘They’re really there,’ Sergeant Gore said, shaking his head. ‘All this time and it’s her that finds them.’
‘Told you so,’ Weaver said. ‘Well done, Artemis.’ She patted the horse’s neck and Artemis tossed her head.
‘They are in a defensive position,’ Captain Smith said. ‘It is just as we hoped. They are not running this time. We can smash them completely. The war is almost over.’
‘Cavaliers spotted us,’ Sergeant Gore said. ‘Down there by the trees.’
‘We must get back to Cromwell, right now,’ Smith said. ‘You can tell him yourself that you have allowed him to win his war, Weaver.’
She grinned. Sergeant Gore was scowling which made her grin even wider.
‘How far behind is our army?’ Weaver asked Captain Smith.
‘Close,’ Gore said. ‘Can almost smell them.’
‘If the King does not run away?’ Smith replied, nodding. ‘It’ll be battle tomorrow.’
Writer’s Finding
Bacon’s quarters in the city were packed full of interesting objects and books and old scrolls and huge codices. Most of them hidden under discarded clothing or blankets or under jumbles of plates and empty bottles. Dust and spider webs covered much of the mass of objects. Writer picked through a big pile of scrolls on one of the tables by the window. Most she found were written in languages and alphabets that she did not recognise. Bacon was useless in deciphering them. He simply did not care to help her.
Still, she searched for anything that could prove insight into her own powers and magic generally.
‘I keep asking them to provide you a housekeeper,’ Writer said, poking an apple that had turned into a ball of green mould out of the way with the end of a scroll. It puffed out a cloud of spores that she waved away. ‘But no one listens to me.’
‘A housekeeper?’ Bacon asked from his chair. He had a blanket over his lap and a cup of wine in his hand. ‘Why would I need a housekeeper?’
A dusty black cloth covered a big lumpen thing in the middle of the table. The scrolls had surrounded it and she had not known it was there. She knocked it with her knuckle and it clanged like a bell.
She pulled the cloth back and coughed as dust flew up into the shaft of light coming from the high window.
Under the cloth was a brass head. The head was not truly lifelike, more like a mask with some inner workings. In a way, it was reminiscent of Stearne’s mechanical arm. Only that the head before her was dull and motionless and covered in dust. A faded, broken, sad old thing.
‘You are admiring my Brazen Head, I see,’ Bacon said, smiling from his chair. He had lost most of his
teeth and it gave his mouth a sagging, puckered look.
‘Admiring it,’ Writer said. ‘Yes indeed. May I ask you what it is?’
‘Now? It is merely a relic of earlier, more glorious times. But once, when I was the most famous alchemist in England, my Brazen Head was one of the reasons for that fame. You see, when I built it, the head spoke wisdoms to anyone who asked it questions.’
Writer was dubious. She could not see how such a thing was possible. In the last few weeks of his occasional company, she had discovered that his wits wandered, he forgot what he had told her and he often contradicted himself.
Nevertheless, she was convinced that Bacon would reveal to her many more of the secrets of alchemy than Cedd, Bede or any of the battlemages ever would. And even though his rooms were filthy and dark and smelled bad, they were at least peaceful. It was the place she could enjoy respite from the anger and explosive madness of the practice field.
‘But this head is a mechanical device,’ Writer said. ‘How could it contain wisdom?’
Bacon chuckled. ‘You need more convincing, I see. Quite right, quite right. When it was whole, there was a mechanism underneath, a box, with a series of wheels, cogs, and rods that could be set in a series of intricate patterns through the setting of gears. Each setting provided a different function. It was perhaps the most complicated device ever created.’
Writer peered beneath the table. ‘There is nothing under it now.’
‘It was stolen. Many years ago. By some upstart named Dee. He had some men rough me up rather badly. Broke my skull with a cudgel. Look. You can still see the dent. They thought I would die but the Elixir won through in the end. Although, I was never the same after that. I wonder what happened to that villain.’
Bacon had spoken of Dee before but clearly, he was having one of his forgetful moments. ‘Dee became the Lord High Alchemist.’
‘He never did?’ Bacon gripped one of his knees through the blanket on his lap. The skin on his bony hand was so thin she could see the bones and tendons inside moving underneath it, reminding her of Stearne’s mechanical arm. ‘Makes sense, I suppose.’
Writer nodded. ‘Dee was King Charles’ most senior alchemist. Then he was captured by Cromwell in some battle or other and he has been working for Cromwell in the Tower of London ever since. They say he has been working on making some device to win the war for Cromwell but no one knows what it is.’
‘No doubt he is using my Brazen Head mechanism, the fiend.’ Bacon was angry and spittle sprayed from his lips. ‘He stole my research, too. All my writings and even my conjuration stones. And dismantled and removed my Conjuration Chamber. Of course, he needed them to power my device. Yes, lost, all lost.’
Writer said. ‘So what was it, precisely, that made the Brazen Head device work? What power was it that you speak of?’
‘Why, demons, of course.’ Dee seemed surprised she would even ask. She had been trying to find out about demons from him almost every time she met with him. Sometimes he began to tell her quite a lot but then he would often grow wary and change the subject. On other occasions, he had forgotten what he was saying mid-sentence or simply fallen asleep. It was really rather trying. Yet she was determined to wring the truth from him, through perseverance if nothing else.
‘Demons?’ she asked, innocently, walking over to his chair. ‘A man I met called Sterne said his mechanical arm was powered by a demon. What are demons?’
‘They are... entities. Creatures of pure power without physical form. Like smoke but almost invisible. They are summoned from the Energetic Plane through conjuration magic and they must be trapped. Trapped in vials. It is their struggles to return to their own layer of reality that gives power to the devices that channel them.’ Bacon coughed. ‘I was one of the first to truly utilise these entities.’
‘Are they... alive?’ Writer asked and crouched down in front and to one side of him.
Bacon waved a hand in the air. ‘Alive? Not in the same way that we are. Or even in the way that animals are. Even insects are more alive than demons. I have performed many experiments and they do not appear to require food or sleep and nor do they attempt to reproduce. But are they aware of us? Are they aware of their imprisonment? Perhaps. Their struggles seem desperate enough, like a wild animal trapped in a cage. But I was never able to communicate with one of them.’
‘How are they conjured? What are the conjuration stones?’ Writer held her breath because Bacon could not often concentrate for long. ‘Many of the magi, like Talbot and Charnock, conjure demons every day using these stones. The demons power spells, to make them more powerful. They will never tell me more.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Bacon waved his hand. ‘You can pull them through with a conjuration stone and they last for but a fraction of a moment on our plane of existence. If you wish to contain them for longer then it requires a greater sacrifice.’
‘What?’ Writer whispered. ‘What sacrifice?’
‘Oh, that’s not something you want to get involved in, dear girl,’ he said, infuriating her. ‘Terrible thing, proper permanent conjuration. Unforgivable, in fact. It shall be my eternal shame. No good that I have done in my life before or since can make up for it.’
Writer felt like shaking him and demanding answers yet she forced herself to be calm. ‘Make up for what? What did you do that was so bad? How does conjuration work?’
‘In the old days, we used to believe in a type of duality. In a cosmic balance. Everything has an opposite. In order to make a thing happen, the opposite has to happen.’ Bacon’s mind seemed to be wandering again.
Writer sighed. The truth of conjuration had been so close. ‘You believe it no longer?’
Bacon looked angry. ‘It was something I told myself to justify what I did.’
‘What did you do?’ Writer asked again.
Bacon looked down at her. ‘We were bringing an entity into our own world. From one of the worlds behind this one, one we call the Energetic Plane. But to do that we had to send something back the other way. We had to power the transfer, do you see? And maintain the cosmic balance.’
Writer nodded. It seemed perfectly reasonable.
‘You know that magic comes from harmonic resonances? From sounds meeting sounds? That’s what an incantation, a spell is. The sound helps to create a channel between the layers of reality. The window is the third eye.’ He reached down and prodded her forehead with his paper-dry finger. ‘And you open route into the Energetic Plane. It flows through you and out into this world. No demons are brought through. It is a flow from one side to the other. When you cast a spell, you feel exhausted afterwards because you have traded your own physical, mental and spiritual energy for that of the other reality.’
‘I understand.’ Writer could hardly breathe. This was what she needed to know.
‘A conjuration stone is a hard white substance that creates the focal point of the harmonies. It is the physical equivalent to the third eye. You perform the chant, it flows through the stone and into our world where it meets our Physical Plane and it explodes its way back to its own plane. But if you have a vial prepared to receive the demon and trap it here, you can hold it for quite some time. Depending on the power of the conjurer and the intensity of the spell.’
‘But how do you create a permanent conjuration? Is that what the Conjuration Chamber is for? You said Dee stole yours?’
Bacon seemed more focused and present than she had ever seen him. ‘Conjuration is actually an exchange. You will know the axiom. There is no such thing as a free luncheon. It means that you may not get something without someone, somewhere paying for it. And to get yourself a powerful demon for days, for weeks and months then you must give up a person in return.’
‘A person?’
‘I was not the first to conceive of the Conjuration Chamber. I merely perfected it. You place a living creature inside, perform the spell and the living creature vanishes. You are left with a demon.’
Writer struggled to understand.
‘You killed animals?’
Bacon nodded. ‘We tried it with dogs and cats first. Sometimes you get a weak demon but it is often barely enough to power a clock. We tried cows and pigs. Even a Barbary ape. To no avail. So we turned to a more powerful sacrifice.’
‘People.’ Writer was gripping the arm of Bacon’s chair.
Bacon covered his eyes with a shaking hand. ‘Condemned prisoners, in the main. Murderers and the like who would hang anyway. And prisoners from war. We were always at war against the French or the Scots back then. Poor fellows.’
‘And they were killed in the process?’
‘I was never able to establish the truth. Either they were pulled into the Energetic Plane, where they could not survive, or they were snuffed out of existence. Perhaps they were squeezed into the space between worlds. There’s no way to resolve the question, sadly. But whatever the way, yes, they were likely killed in an instant.’
She did not know what to say. It was appalling and fascinating in equal measure. Bacon was staring off across the room at nothing. Writer sat in the chair opposite Bacon.
For a long time she had sought knowledge of conjuration but reflect that now that she knew, she felt somewhat let down. It was not quite so glorious as she had expected and she did not really want anything to do with it.
‘I suppose I ought to go and find Cedd and Bede,’ she said. ‘The New Model Army is drawing near, finally. The city is in an uproar. People who live here have hidden in cellars. Others are running away to the north and west.’
‘Why have you yourself not yet fled?’ Bacon asked. ‘Were you not talking to me on another day about running away? Or was that some other girl?’
Writer was not sure she could entirely trust Bacon but she wanted to trust someone. For all his words, she had known always that Cedd had never been kind and gentle and generous, as Bacon was. And besides, he would probably forget anyway.
