Talog To-Tek cries with alarm and leaps from his chair. Moriarty laughs, “Sit down, fool. Fasoul is the obvious choice. The man cannot secure his own food, much less defend himself from the five of us. Not to worry. I have brought an alternative. I had hoped to spend him better than this, but… well… it is an occasion, is it not?”
“What?” asks Sir Hugo. “The boy?”
“Hmm. He may not seem it, but he has accomplished more than anybody else in this room—myself excepted—and though his gifts are limited, he can do that which I still cannot. Behold.” Moriarty reaches into his pocket and draws forth a heavy bar of gold. He throws it to the table. It is closely followed by a second. “That one used to be lead,” Moriarty tells his fellows. “That one was iron.”
“Here is a secret worth knowing,” whispers Sheng.
Moriarty frowns. “I had hoped to have it out of him by now, but I am convinced he does not understand how he did it. Lucky imbecile. Well… and unlucky… What do you say, friends, shall we give him to the demons?”
There is a roar of approbation and a clinking of cups. Only Sir Hugo is uncomfortable with the offer. He has lost. He has dared to contrive against the greatest wizard in history and underestimated his foe. He knew the risk. He did not expect victory, but the possibility was there and he could not pass it by. Yet, what surprises Sir Hugo most is this… joviality. Not just mercy—an unthinkable boon, to any who know Moriarty’s reputation—but the sudden transformation of this group of betrayers and murderers into laughing comrades. What is happening?
Almost in answer to his thought, Moriarty’s hand claps him on the shoulder. “Of course, I’m taking your house.”
“What?”
“Your house. It is mine now. And it shall be me, not you, who sits atop those white lines when the clock strikes twelve. When the fifth line opens and all the demons and devils and gods rush to the center to meet their chosen mortal vessel, I shall be waiting to dictate terms to them. This is only fair.”
Sir Hugo can barely bring himself to speak. But he cannot bring himself not to. He should be silent. He should escape with his life, yet he cannot help but growl, “Fair? Fair?”
“Generous,” Moriarty declares. “I think we all realize that I could slay you, if I choose. Sober calculation dictates that I must. Or, as a better display of my power, I should force one of the other guests to do it. Are there any here who would not kill this man to curry my favor?”
The room is silent. Moriarty smiles. “Of course not. Yet be of good cheer, Sir Hugo: I have reason to spare you. It is time for tonight’s lesson. Talog To-Tek, stand up.”
He does. Moriarty faces the burly Aztec and asks, “Do you know why your powers are so weak?”
“My powers are…”
But he stops. In the jungle one always professes strength, even now, after the empire has fallen. Yet, if he proclaims himself powerful, Moriarty will demonstrate that he is not.
“Why?” Talog To-Tek asks.
“Because you rely on blood sacrifice. A man is killed in the name of a god, therefore that god is present. But only slightly. These gods—these spirits—are remote. They can hardly extend themselves, hardly be felt in our world, even when they are honored with blood. They are unable to give much power away, when their hold is so tenuous. So what are you chasing? Tiny shreds of your spirit are all that come through—of that small portion, you can barely hope that you will be given the tenth share. You have spent your whole life chasing after scraps of scraps, and you think greatness is achievable? You have not honestly evaluated your art. Baskerville has. He has had the vision to seek the greatest advantage he can derive and settle for nothing less. That is why he shall live. That is why he shall stay here, under the roof that was once his, to attend me and learn my secrets. He will be my apprentice. He will serve me and, in so doing, will become the second greatest mage on earth. Why? To teach all you other dabblers this lesson: reason is the greatest gift of man.” He slaps the table to make his point, then sits, saying, “So, take heart, Hugo. You may live. It is not such a defeat, after all, is it?”
He waves his empty cup at Barrymore. He should not, for he does not normally drink and he is unused to it. But this is an occasion. Besides that, there is a part of him that hates himself for not killing Hugo. Reason is only half the cause of his success; the other half is cold-blooded unwillingness to brook the merest hint of defiance. Yet magic will never be a significant tool for mankind unless Moriarty’s lesson is learned and the full vivacity of man’s intellect is turned to the outer mystery. As a scholar, it irks him to see that this is not being done. He’s easily vexed tonight, for he knows his victory will be tainted. It will be such a gain, when he sits atop five open lines. Yet, to see Hugo alive when that moment comes, will feel as a defeat.
“Where is that boy?” Moriarty grumbles. “He should have been back by now.” He raps his knuckles on the table and shouts, “Warlock?”
“Master?” answers a meek voice, from just outside the hall door.
Hiding? He is hiding? He did not hasten back to report? Something is wrong. “What has happened, boy? Did she drink?”
“No…”
“Why did she not drink?”
“She is gone.”
Consternation and clamor run through the assembled mages. They know enough to understand that this is not good, yet only Moriarty and his host know why, or just how dire the situation is. Baskerville goes white.
“Gone?” Moriarty bellows. “Gone? What has happened? Come here, you wretch! Come here and tell me all!”
Sheepish and tear-stained, the boy slinks back over the threshold.
“Aaaaaaaaiiieeah!” Fasoul shrieks. “Tears and wreck and rack and ruin! The black one has returned! Prince of tatters! Prince of ash!”
12
THE WIND HAS PICKED UP, MOANING ITS COMPLAINT AS it breaks over the East Tower. It gusts through the open window as Moriarty leans out. Below, in the courtyard, his companions’ torches sputter and flicker; the light they cast is changing and uncertain, but it is enough. There is no body at the base of the tower. She is down and away.
Moriarty turns wrathful eyes down upon his host, standing five stories below. “How has this happened, Sir Hugo?”
“I cannot say! The window was barred!”
“There are no bars!”
“What has happened to them?” Sir Hugo shouts. It is hard to make himself heard over the gathering wind.
Moriarty doesn’t answer. He is glad the other mages went outside. The only person with him is his boy. He should seize that boy by the hair, drag him to the window and hurl him out. Except now he is afraid to. The residue of magic is immense. To make bars disappear from a window is a simple trick. It takes a bit of art, but almost no true power. Here, the very stones of the walls reverberate with magic. Whatever occurred in this room was done with a complete lack of wit or subtlety, but with more magic than those cretins down below have gathered in all their lives.
“What have you done?” Moriarty asks the boy.
“Nothing, master.”
Moriarty reaches for his cane to strike the boy, but it is downstairs; he left it with Barrymore. He could hit the lad, but his gloves are with his cane and he does not wish to have skin to skin contact with the boy. Not so soon after a spell of this magnitude.
“Come,” he tells the boy.
By the time they reach the courtyard, the air is filled with the baying of hounds. The hunt will be a difficult one. The wind is high; the dogs will not scent well. And if one should happen to find her, how far will his baying carry over the noise of the storm? A few drops of rain slant down, threatening more. Sir Hugo is in his saddle and his grooms are seeing to the guests’ horses.
“This could be most unfortunate, Baskerville,” says Moriarty.
“I know… master,” Sir Hugo says. It is good he has come to accept his place.
“Your months of ritual cannot be undone; your work cannot be recanted. The fifth line will open to
night. Yet without the blood of an innocent and the blood of a practitioner, it will be dangerously unstable.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“I do not know, Sir Hugo. It is possible the fifth line will simply close. Then again, it might break wide open. If it does, the other four will surely go as well and this world will become the battleground of all the demon realms that have access to those lines. They want this place, you know. After they are done fighting over it, I wonder if the victor will still be pleased with the scraps.”
Baskerville nods. This is his assessment, too. To think: he could be the man who breaks the world. Worlds are not fragile things, unless you can find a spot where they are already cracked.
“Where would the girl go?” Moriarty asks.
“Her family’s farm,” Sir Hugo answers, “almost certainly.”
“You know where this farm is?” Moriarty asks. Sir Hugo nods. “I want you to picture in your mind exactly where it lies,” Moriarty commands. “Have you got it?” Hugo nods again and Moriarty pulls Hugo down in the saddle and places a palm to his forehead. Hugo feels a sudden sharp pain. His nose begins to bleed. He cannot remember where that farm is.
“I shall go in my carriage,” Moriarty says. “Send Sanzetti and Sheng back to the town, in case she tries to flee to the safety of the townsfolk instead of her family. You must hunt her by horse and hound. You have no memory of her home now, so you will follow her scent. We must recapture the sacrifice of innocence! You and I shall take her—one man at her heels and one at her house.”
Baskerville shakes his head. “No good. There is no road. Your carriage cannot…”
“How many grooms have you here?” Moriarty asks, “How many stable boys?”
“Only two grooms, one stable boy.”
“Ah. My horses will leave one of the grooms; he will have to prepare the rest of our mounts alone.”
“What about the other two?”
“If my horses are to bring a carriage where there is no road, they must eat. Two men are scanty fare, but enough to get us there, I think. They’ll have to eat her family to get us back.”
Moriarty turns from his host-turned-vassal and calls, “Barrymore, get Fasoul into my carriage.”
“Fasoul?” Baskerville asks.
“If he has any insight as to how the evening is playing out, I want to hear it.”
Baskerville nods. “And what of To-Tek?”
“I have different employment for him. Now go. I will see you at the girl’s house, or close thereby.”
Sir Hugo shouts for his kennel master to loose the hounds. Then wheels his horse and sets off across the moor.
Checking to make sure the boy is still lingering near the door, Moriarty goes to Talog To-Tek and says, “I have need of your skills.”
Talog chafes at this. “You say I have no skills.”
“It is not magic I need,” says Moriarty, “but steel. Have you your knife?”
“Yes, but it is not steel. Flint. Stone.”
“That will do,” Moriarty says. “The life of a mage must be lost through the fifth line, before midnight. Take my boy, over there, and see that it is done.”
“But how will I know where the line is?” asks Talog.
Moriarty sighs. “Spill his blood in the great hall where the five lines meet and you cannot miss it. Can you do this?”
Talog looks over at the boy and asks, “He does not look fit to outrun me; I can go fast as the jaguar, far as the whale. Can he fight?”
“No.”
“Then he will die.”
“Good,” says Moriarty, then shouts, “Boy!”
The boy is not listening. He is staring up at the wall of the East Tower. Moriarty grabs him by his hair. “Boy! Go with Talog! Do as he says!”
Warlock Holmes nods dumbly. Moriarty hastens away to the stables. As Barrymore drags Fasoul past, the blind Turk and Warlock lock eyes. For an instant, Warlock sees Fasoul as Fasoul sees the world. There is no skin, no clothes, only hard bits inside the man, stringy bits holding him together. There are two burning green balls of gas—his eyes. They are full of fear. Everything is full of fear. The earth is afraid of what is happening; Warlock can feel it. He can see where Bhehr-Lylegnag climbed down the wall. She was so frightened, especially near the top; her fingers left traces of fear on the stones. So many powerful things are present tonight, but fear is the best of them. Everyone feels it. If anything is to take shape tonight—to grow legs and walk and breathe—it is fear.
The Roman and the Chinawoman ride past. From the direction of the stables, the screaming starts. The last groom and the kennel master come running by, just before Moriarty’s black carriage. There is blood on the flagstones, where the horses’ hooves have struck. The big Aztec is walking towards Warlock.
“Even you are afraid,” Warlock tells him.
The big man nods and suddenly strikes the boy just below the ribs. All the air leaves Warlock and he begins to gasp and cough. The Aztec winds the fingers of his left hand into Warlock’s long, unkempt hair and begins dragging him towards the hall. In his other hand is a blade of jagged stone.
He’s going to kill me, Warlock realizes.
Well… that is foolish. That is wrong. It won’t help anybody. Yes, Warlock’s death could help stop the cracking of the earth, but it cannot heal it, only work to keep the wound forever open. The earth is not served by this. Baskerville and Moriarty will not be helped; they want to be wanted by the outside powers, but those demons do not wish to treat with such men. The demons will not be served by Warlock’s death. They will be furious. They have chosen him. Can’t Talog see that? Can’t he hear them, chattering in Warlock’s head? Promising him favors? Giving him gifts?
“I am the sacred smoke,” says one, “and I grant you sway. No smoke shall choke you, or stop your sight. I ask nothing in return. Only remember me. I am your friend.”
“No, no,” says another. “Foolish. Now, if they burn you at the stake, you will burn—you cannot choke. He is no friend. Take me. I am the goddess of the hearth. I am the mother. I give you the gifts of the hearth: warm bread and soothing broth. When all those you love have passed from this earth, when all good things have been lost to the flow of time, my food shall bring you comfort. Hestia! Hestia!”
“Ash shall be thy ally,” says another. “Whatever secrets it may hold shall be shared with thee—the burned thing known by its wreck. Remember me and praise my name: Sxaah.”
“No. Blast and ruin. Purple flame and red, red blood. Hit! Smite! I am Azazel!”
These and a hundred more. He can barely hear them all. Can’t Talog tell? Why would the demons wish to deal with a man such as Moriarty—a man who will bargain with them and control them, bend them to his will? Why not a boy with no will? Why not a beaten dog?
But Warlock cannot tell these things to Talog. He’s got no breath and he’s got no time; they’re nearly at the hall. This man is going to murder him. Is he afraid? He can’t tell. He doesn’t feel the grip of fear in his heart, but he can feel it all around him, pressing in, begging to have form and breath and pulsing blood. Only, Warlock doesn’t know the shape of it.
Talog kicks the door open. No, the shape of fear is not a door. It is not a stone knife, or five white lines on a black floor. It is not sweat on the palm or tears in the eye. What is it? Fear wants to know. Horror wants to know. It wants Warlock to tell it.
What is my shape?
Oh! He knows! It is leaning in towards the portal in the door, to kiss Bhehr-Lylegnag. It is the moment before lips touch, when she still might refuse. That is the shape!
No! That is not the same fear! There is too much hope in it! What is the shape of fear, bereft of hope? Without love, without happiness, without shame or loss. What is the shape of the world, when only fear is in it?
The boy cannot think of it.
But he sees it. Near the door: his master’s cane. The silver hound.
As soon as he spies it, he feels the lash of it on his
back. Memories, like a solid wall, hit him in the chest. The bruises on his chest and face and arms and legs and back are not old. Yet with all these lashes, he feels the hundreds of marks that have faded. All those blows are struck anew. The hound, whose growl looks like a smile. Moriarty and the hound, smiling at him.
“Your father sold you too cheap, boy,” Moriarty had said, that first day in the carriage. He was running his gloved fingers over the silver hound’s head, pausing to feel its cleverly wrought little teeth.
Warlock remembers a night he spent on the floor, having once again failed to explain the movements of the tiny elements within the lead. He is bleeding. He can taste his teeth and his tears and the cold stone tiles. But he will not die. Again tonight, he will not die. Moriarty is too careful to strike a mortal blow without meaning to. The hound will be finished with Warlock only when Moriarty knows the secrets in the metal. Then, he promises, the hound will strike one last time.
“Strike your throat out, boy.”
Warlock is screaming now and struggling. Talog feels better; he always hates it when his victims show no fear. It makes him worry they know something he does not. He strikes Warlock’s head twice against the floor to quiet him, and drags him to the focal point. Talog does not know if he should call upon his gods before he cuts, but habit is stronger than sense, so he begins. He calls upon the snake that flies and slithers, and bids him not to watch. He calls to Smoke Jaguar and tells him to wet his fangs. The first cut goes deep down the boy’s leg, from hip to knee. Drink, Jaguar.
There is a noise by the door. Talog looks up. An interloper? Rescuer? No. Professor Moriarty’s silver cane has fallen, tipped past the edge of the door. Talog laughs. The tiny silver dog has peeped around the door to watch. Very well, little dog, we will make an extra cut before we take the heart—on the foot, perhaps. The jaguar must drink, then the sky and the gourd and the stone step. Then you may have some, too.
The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles Page 22
