Dark Magic

by Angus Wells

  From the window, Calandryll saw a familiar gate, and frowned as something about it struck him amiss. At first he was not sure—or could not believe his eyes—for the avenue was shaded with winter-stripped trees and the new moon not so bright as to shed clear light. He called for the coachman to halt, staring in numbed silence at the long pennants of white silk hung from the arched gate-top. They stirred fitfully in the night wind, ghostly at his dawning suspicion: he groaned.

  “What is it?” Bracht’s whisper was loud in his ear as the freesword peered at the gate. “What are those ribbons?”

  Calandryll’s teeth ground hard together as the coachman’s voice came from the seat above: “Shall you be staying overnight, or would you have me wait while you pay your respects?”

  “Funerary pennants!” His answer was harsh with conjecture. “Someone has died here. In Lysse it’s the custom to hang such ribbons to announce a death.”

  “Rhythamun?” Bracht’s reply was disbelieving.

  “More likely Varent den Tarl.” Calandryll shook his head, turning a face paled by moon’s light and apprehension toward the Kern. “Know you what that means?”

  “That Rhythamun has quit the body,” Katya said softly, helplessly, “and now inhabits another.”

  Bracht mouthed a curse. From the seat the coachman asked again, “Do I await you, or go on?”

  “Go on!”

  Calandryll flung the door open, springing to the street and tossing coins to the driver. Bracht came behind, pausing only to hand Katya down. Calandryll eyed the white pennants with loathing and hammered on the gate, the need for caution replaced now by the fear they had come too late.

  Dera, but if Varent den Tarl was dead and Rhythamun ensconced in the form of some fresh victim their task was become near impossible! Must they now hunt a stranger, the warlock masked in another’s body, faceless? He felt his heart beat faster, drumming a rhythm of awful trepidation as he waited for the gate to open, his fingers tapping impatiently on the hilt of his sword. At his side he heard Bracht demand, “How can he be dead if your stone points us here?” and Katya answer simply, “I know not,” that reply met with another curse from the Kern.

  Then the gate was opened by a servant dressed in Varent’s blue and gold livery, divided across the chest by the white sash of mourning, his face hollowed by the shadows his lantern threw. “Masters?” he asked. “What would you in this sad place?”

  “The Lord Varent den Tarl,” Calandryll extemporized, composing himself to some semblance of calm. “He is dead?”

  “Aye.” The servant nodded solemnly. “And lies now in his coffin.”

  “We’d pay our respects,” Calandryll said quickly. “Only today did we arrive in Aldarin, and this news was unknown to us.”

  “You knew him?” The white-sashed man raised the lantern higher, studying the visitors with an element of suspicion, as if such latecomers could herald no good. “I had thought all who would offer their farewells were come. On the morrow he shall be entombed in his family’s crypt.”

  “Lord Varent commissioned us to a duty,” Calandryll said firmly. “Do you speak with”—he hesitated as he racked his memory for near-forgotten names—“his man Darth. Aye, Darth; or Symeon, who manages his accounts—either one will vouch for us.”

  The servant paused, clearly torn between offending this tall young man who spoke in the accents of the Lyssian nobility for all he wore the appearance of some itinerant freesword, and the dubious nature of his arrival at so late an hour. Bracht resolved the problem.

  The Kern pushed past Calandryll, settling himself directly before the servant. “I gave a black stallion into Darth’s care,” he snapped, “and Symeon will, I trust, confirm that some two thousand five hundred varre are owed me. Now—do you bring us inside, or . . .”

  He touched the falchion’s hilt suggestively; the servant started back, mumbling reluctant agreement, and beckoned them after him.

  The mansion’s doors were draped, like the gates, with white and the interior was mostly unlit, though a single chandelier illuminated the vestibule to which he brought them. He sketched a bow and murmured that they should wait, his expression one of relief as Calandryll waved his dismissal and frowned nervously at Bracht.

  “Tact might well serve us better now,” he whispered. “If—as it seems—worst has come to worst, we must learn all we may from Varent’s people, not antagonize them.”

  “I’d enough of his prevarication.” The Kern gestured irritably, then as abruptly grinned. “And we are here, are we not?”

  “Aye,” Calandryll allowed. “For what good it does us.”

  “Mayhap we shall find some clue,” Katya suggested. “Did you not say he had a library?”

  Calandryll nodded curtly. “Though I doubt he’s left us markers to follow. And if he’s taken some other form, time is even more our enemy.”

  “We do what we can.” Bracht’s voice was hard, defensive of the woman. Calandryll sighed and said, “I fear he shall escape us.”

  The Kern smiled briefly then, mollified, and said, “At least we face no magicks here.”

  Calandryll began to reply, but the inner door swung open then, admitting Darth. Like the gateman he wore a sash of white silk to indicate his mourning, wound about his waist, the hilt of a long dagger protruding. Red wine colored his lips and his step appeared a trifle unsteady as he came toward them. He studied them a moment, squinting as his eyes took time to focus, then ducked his head and smiled in recognition, his tongue thick as he greeted them.

  “So you return at last, and with a beauty.” His gaze flickered blearily over Katya and he offered an unstable bow before murmuring lewdly to Bracht, “Rytha will be disappointed.”

  Had he been less concerned with the enormity of events, Calandryll would have been amused by the reddening of the Kern’s cheeks as Katya fixed him with a speculative glance, offsetting the anger sparked by Darth’s drunken admiration. He cleared his throat and said, “Rytha? I had forgotten Rytha.”

  Darth shrugged carelessly and asked, “You’ve come for your horse? He’s been well tended,”

  “And the money owed me,” Bracht said, indicating Calandryll with a callused thumb, playing the part of mercenary bodyguard. “Two thousand five hundred varre were promised did I bring my charge back safe from Gessyth—which you can see I’ve done.”

  “Dera’s love!” Darth shook his head in exaggerated censure. “Lord Varent lies scarce cold in his coffin and you talk of debts. Have you no respect, man?”

  “Life goes on,” said Bracht bluntly.

  Darth’s flushed features grew darker and Calandryll feared he might eject them, but then the man’s stained mouth curved in a smile and he began to chuckle. “That much is true,” he agreed, “but Symeon is majordomo to this household and he must settle all such matters now. Come—I’ll bring you to him.”

  Calandryll raised a hand, halting him as he beckoned them to follow. “The sum was, indeed, agreed,” he said, “but before such mundane matters are discussed, I’d pay my respects to Lord Varent.”

  Darth appeared impressed by this observation of the proprieties and nodded, ushering them from the vestibule along a gallery lit at intervals by the soft yellow glow of candles to a door hung with a single unbroken sheet of white.

  As was the custom in Lysse a room had been cleared and set aside, that the coffin might stand alone, awaiting those who would say their last farewells. Pristine curtains covered the windows and the only light came from tall candelabra standing at the head and foot of a catafalque draped with more silk. Upon that platform stood a sarcophagus of marble worked in Varent’s colors, blue and gold. Calandryll gazed at the elaborate coffin, not sure whether he felt apprehension or hope, his thoughts in turmoil at this dramatic turn of events. His instinct was to hurry forward, but he curbed his haste, forcing himself to approach slowly, head bowed in apparent reverence. He realized that he held his breath as he looked down, half expecting Rhythamun to spring up, laughing in triumph.
But in the coffin there was only a body, a husk with all the life gone out of it. It was swathed in white, the still face gleaming in the candlelight, its lifelike appearance testament to the embalmer’s artifice. Calandryll stared at the familiar features, the dark eyes dull now, no longer animated by the bright spark of existence.

  This was, beyond all doubt, Varent den Tarl, and he was truly dead: Calandryll heard his stifled breath come out in a slow sigh and turned away.

  He looked to Darth as Bracht and Katya approached the bier, his mind racing, horribly aware that the sorcerer had escaped and that he must somehow find a way to pursue. “When did he die?” he asked.

  Darth took his hollow tone for grief, which in a way it was, and answered, “As is our custom, he’s lain in state these past three weeks. And now the house is to be sold and I’ve to find some other employment.”

  He glanced accusingly at the catafalque: Calandryll assumed a sympathetic smile and said, “My condolences. Shall you bring us to Symeon now?”

  Symeon was huddled behind the same cluttered desk in the same wood-paneled chamber where last they had seen him, as if he had not moved from there in all the time they had been gone. The single high window was shuttered, candlelight glinting off his bald pate and the spectacles that magnified his shortsighted eyes. Those fixed on the trio as Darth ushered them in.

  “Two thousand five hundred varre,” he said by way of welcome. “Which you prefer be paid in decuris. Correct?”

  Bracht nodded and the little man opened a leather-bound register, fastidiously annotated a column of figures, and set down his quill. He wiped his inky hands on his grubby tunic, succeeding in transferring a generous measure to the sash that spanned the mound of his belly, and rose without further ado to crouch before the metal door set in the wall behind him. Calandryll watched as he brought a key from his breeches and set it in the lock. He swung the door open with a great huffing and reached into a chest he hid with his body. Coins clinked as he counted them into a leather pouch, then he closed the chest, returned it to the wall, and carefully locked the door. Wheezing, he rose to his feet and set the pouch on the farther edge of the desk.

  “We thought you dead,” he murmured, eyes shifting from their faces to the promised commission, “but a contract is a contract.”

  “Indeed,” said Bracht, taking the pouch and weighing it thoughtfully in his hand.

  “It’s all there,” said Symeon.

  Bracht inclined his head and said, “I’ve no doubt,” as he tucked the pouch safely beneath his jerkin.

  The fat little man nodded, fingers caressing his ledgers as if he deemed all their business done and longed to return to his books. When they failed to remove themselves he grunted somewhat irritably and demanded, “Have you other matters we need discuss? Lord Varent had no kin and it falls to me to set this house in order that his possessions may be auctioned off.”

  So brusque was his inquiry Calandryll came close to laughter that he knew would come out hysteric. Other matters? Aye, he thought, I’d discuss the manner of your master’s death and the fact that he sought—still seeks, likely in another’s form!—to raise the Mad God. He bit back the threatening laughter and said aloud, “Our contract with Lord Varent is ended with his death, though I’d fain see his library again. He had rare volumes there, such as are not found in lesser collections. And he promised me its run on my return.”

  Symeon’s plump mouth pursed and he plucked at his lower lip with ink-stained fingers, as if debating the matter.

  “Mayhap I’d find volumes I might wish to purchase,” Calandryll urged, “and thus render your accounting easier. Price is no object.”

  The majordomo smiled avariciously at that and said, “I see no reason why we should not negotiate a suitable price. Darth, do you take them there?”

  Without further courtesies he bent his head once more to his desk, busily scribbling.

  “Fat slug,” Darth muttered when the door was closed, “coin is his only love.”

  He led them to the familiar room, producing a tinderbox that he set to the candles there. As he worked, still muttering to himself, Calandryll put his mouth close to Bracht’s ear and whispered, “Get him away if you can, and learn what you may—I’ll see what’s to be found here.”

  It was not difficult: the hearth was cold and the chamber chill, Darth evincing no hesitation when Bracht clapped a companionable hand to his shoulder and suggested they leave Calandryll to inspect the shelves while they repaired to warmer quarters and sampled the wine doubtless remaining in the dead man’s cellars. Katya smiled refusal of their invitation to join them, declaring herself more interested in the library, and instantly the door was closed Calandryll dropped the latch and set to examining the room.

  It seemed unlikely the wizard would be so foolish as to leave behind him the means by which he might be found, but still Calandryll hoped some indication might be revealed. It was, he knew, a threadbare hope and his optimism faded swiftly: it was soon apparent there were no obvious clues to Rhythamun’s destination. The library had been tidied, the table on which Calandryll had spent long hours tracing Orwen’s charts was bare, the shelves neatly stacked with such a profusion of scrolls and parchments and manuscripts that it would take weeks to study them all, and that with no certain guarantee of success. In mounting desperation he looked about him: it seemed the shelves laughed back, mocking. And then he remembered the hidden compartment from which Varent had taken the charts.

  It was a straw he clutched at, but still it seemed his blood ran afire in his veins as he removed books that would once have engrossed him, occupying him for hours, for days, but that now were only an encumbrance to what he sought. He tossed them carelessly aside, revealing the secret panel, turned the knob that sprung the compartment open.

  Whatever he had dared hope might be there—some other map, some clue to where the wizard went—he had not anticipated what he found. The compartment was empty save for a dull red stone attached to a leather thong: the talisman he had worn so long. The key that had opened Rhythamun’s way to Tezin-dar. He snatched his hand back as though from a serpent’s fangs, snarling an ugly oath. Katya gasped, drawing out her own periapt, her grey eyes wide and stormy as she clutched the jewel and matched his curse with one no weaker.

  “Thus he led us here,” she said hoarsely. “And now eludes us.”

  “No!” Calandryll snarled unthinking refusal, his voice steeled with a rage born of frustration. “He shall not!”

  Unthinking, he grasped the pendant stone and drew it out, cursing Rhythamun all the while, the curses halting as he felt the thing grow warm in his hand, the faint, dull fire at its center becoming a flame that spewed the scent of almonds like mocking laughter in his dumbstruck face.

  He flung the stone away, the straightsword drawn in the same movement, instinctive, for all his intellect told him the blade was useless against the glamour of the talisman. Wide-eyed, his scalp prickling with horrid anticipation, he saw the flame jet upward, the shape of a man forming within its dancing light.

  He cursed anew as he recognized the features, staring aghast at the face of Varent den Tarl. The ghostly figure smiled scornfully back, the dark eyes filled with contempt, the voice that whispered like crackling flame, urbane, underpinned with horrid amusement.

  “So, Calandryll, you escaped from Tezin-dar, for only your hand could invigorate the stone that doubtless led you here. Mayhap I should congratulate you, for I’d thought you safely ensnared.”

  Katya’s saber sliced the indistinct form: it wavered, like smoke disturbed by a random breeze, and the mocking voice went on.

  “Well done, then—you demonstrate a swiftness of thought I’d not expected. No matter! You served your purpose well enough when you brought me to the city and put the Arcanum in my hands.”

  The apparition laughed: insult and assault, both. Calandryll stared, unaware that he snarled, a leashed hound thirsting to attack.

  “And now the book is mine, and I need only go
to where Tharn rests, need only work the gramaryes of unbinding to raise the god. What then shall not be mine for the asking? Such might as petty men dream of, but dare not take for their own! And it is to you I owe thanks for that unlocking—know you, Calandryll, that without your aid I might not have accomplished this.”

  The phantom bowed; Calandryll’s teeth grated.

  “Do you hail me? Or do you curse me? The latter, I’d suspect, for your innocence was a wonder to behold, and I think that such as you cannot aspire to the heights of my dreaming. Still, you served me well and mayhap when I come into my own I shall reward you . . . if you live still when great Tharn once more walks abroad. If not, count your life well spent for what you gave me.

  “And now, farewell. This body you knew is quit and I go on. Shall I tell you where? Mayhap not—the path I tread is not for such as you. So farewell, my dupe; and once more, my thanks.”

  The hated figure bowed again, its laughter ringing loud and mad and mocking. The flame that held it died. The scent of almonds faded and the room fell silent. The red stone lay dull, its animating magic spent, no more now than a worthless bauble.