The Poisoned Crown

by Amanda Hemingway

  “I believe I know the place you mean,” Bartlemy said. “You might be disappointed. The Deepwoods of Wilderslee stretch far, but not forever. There are realms of men there, too.”

  “There would be,” Cerne snarled. “Mankind is a plague that rages through all the worlds. Nonetheless, she whom we spoke of thinks to find a place without Men, a dimension of the Sea. Maybe she would draw a storm from it to wreak havoc in the shorelands here. She wants worship and power again—she is not content with her exile in the dark.”

  “Is she using a child as her instrument?”

  “Perhaps. I do not know. The fate of mortals does not concern me.”

  “It should,” said Bartlemy. “In the world Nenufar wants to reach, men and trees drowned together. No matter. What do you know of the boy whom the sisterhood say is born of two worlds? Can you tell me his father’s name?”

  The Hunter’s whiteless eyes became twin pits of flame. “What is this? Am I a servant to be summoned thus for questioning? Or do you mock me?”

  “I would not—”

  “You call him boy—you flatter him! The bastard brat born of two kinds—the witch’s brat with his father’s seed, a seed that could never germinate, never endow him with life! You know the story—who does not? Why taunt me with it?”

  “Ah,” said Bartlemy with sudden comprehension. “Him.”

  “I took her body and she took mine—my impress, my heritage, flesh of my flesh. She made him—an infant botched together from witch woman and wood god, animated by a spirit plucked from who-knew-what infernal region—a monster of neither her world nor mine. What would you want with him? As for his father’s name—who is there who does not know my shame?”

  “You misunderstood me,” Bartlemy said. “I did not allude to the witch’s child, nor wish to offend you. If I have done so, I ask your pardon.”

  “If—!” Cerne laughed bitterly. “Be careful how you talk to me, wizard. It is not well to offend one of the Oldest—especially for a fat soup stirrer who prefers to remain out of trouble.”

  Bartlemy ignored both insult and menace, as he invariably did. Maybe he had heard it too often before.

  “The boy I spoke of is all human,” he said, coming back to the point, “but his father is from another universe. It is his name I seek.”

  “That would be impossible,” Cerne said contemptuously. “No child could be so fathered, human or otherwise. The Gate does not open for a moment of lust. When mortals pass through, they do not return.”

  “Yet you said the portal will open, for mortal and immortal alike. If it will, then maybe it already has.”

  “Mere speculation.” Cerne shrugged. “If small talk is all you want of me—”

  “The seeress said the hour of Doom was approaching,” Bartlemy said. “Whose doom?”

  “I do not know.” A sudden dark smile curved the Hunter’s mouth, changing his face into a diabolical mask. “But we may yet hope it is the Doom of Man!”

  Bartlemy let him go without further questions.

  “What was all that about his son?” Annie asked.

  “I touched a nerve I did not intend,” Bartlemy said. “Old Spirits cannot procreate; it is the usual price of immortality. They have no need to pass on their genes. But once, a very long time ago, Cerne had a liaison with a young witch who used her power to make his seed grow inside her. The thing in her womb had no life, no glimmer of a soul to animate it, so she took a spirit from some unearthly plane and bound it in the fetus for all time. She hoped, I think, to create something superhuman—mortal and werespirit combined—but instead she made a monster. Cerne hated her for her betrayal of him, and hated the son as the symbol of that betrayal. The witch, too, hated her failure—the aberration of her power. And the monster child hated them both.”

  “Poor monster,” Annie said.

  And then: “That wouldn’t be … the Child, would it? The one who—”

  “No,” said Bartlemy. “You would know the monster by his human side. Eriost is all spirit. Shall I call him?”

  Annie nodded.

  “We are not learning much,” Bartlemy said.

  “Keep asking. Please.”

  Presently, the Child appeared in the circle. He looked as Annie remembered, with his flax-pale curls, and the innocent beauty of his face, and his demon’s eyes. Werefolk, she knew, cannot change. It had always disturbed her that she could not tell what sex he was; he was the pronoun of convenience.

  He favored riddletalk even more than the others.

  “The hour draws near,” he said. “The mouse runs. The clock strikes. Hickory—dickory—Dock! There was a prophecy once, or a rumor, that one day a babe would be born who would hold the fate of the world in his hands.”

  “Ah, but which world?” Bartlemy countered wearily. “It sounds like all the other prophecies since Time began. Do you know who the prophet was?”

  “There was a magician in the Darkwood,” said the Child. “But he was no prophet, so maybe it was only a rumor. It was whispered on the wind, written on water.”

  “I know the routine,” said Bartlemy.

  “Then why ask, Omniscient One? Why ask the question if you already have the answer, O Wisest and Fattest of Wizards?”

  “I know only a few of the answers,” Bartlemy said patiently, “and there are many questions. This prophecy of a baby born to save the world, is it different from the others?”

  “No,” said the Child, and laughed his silvery laugh. “The tales are always the same. Slugs and snails and nursery tales …

  What are little boys made of?

  Eye of newt and toe of frog

  Mandrake root and hair of dog

  Finger of birth-strangled brat

  Tailor’s thumb and tail of rat

  Gossip’s tongue and eye of cat

  Tooth of this and nail of that—

  That’s what little boys are made of!

  It was a prophecy—a rumor—a murmur—a grape on the grapevine, an ear in the cornfield. Babes are born every day, every hour. What of it?”

  “It is as I feared,” Bartlemy said, as if speaking to Annie, or the dog, or himself. “The Child knows less than the Lord of the Wood, less even than the Hag with all her jabbering. We will finish it.”

  “The Hag?” The high clear voice grew sharper. “What does she know? Age has made her stupid: her mind has turned to jelly and her mouth to dust. Talk to the worms in the graveyard; they would make more sense. The magician spoke of a babe, but the tale came from elsewhere. From an oracle, maybe, the source of prophecy—or from his master.”

  “Which master?” Bartlemy asked.

  “He sold his soul to the Devil,” Eriost replied lightly. “There is only one who wears that crown. Would you dare to question him?”

  “I heard that his master came from beyond the Gate,” Bartlemy said. “The Devil you speak of has no mandate there.”

  “I cannot see that far,” said the Child. “You know that. Unless the Gate should open to the werekind at last…

  Sing hey nonny nonny, and hip hip hooray!

  The Day of Doom is coming, and it might just be today!

  Summer is icumen, loudly sing cuckoo!

  The Knell of Doom is tolling, and it might just be for you!”

  “Your rhymes are getting worse,” Bartlemy said. “I think I’ve had enough of them.”

  The spirit vanished slowly from the feet up, still laughing and chanting—“The Day of Doom is coming!”—until only his head remained, floating in a nimbus of pale light, lips parted in song. Then, like the Cheshire cat, everything was gone except the mouth. It hung around for a while, singing in a faint, faraway voice, till Bartlemy disposed of it with a word.

  “That’s that,” he said, turning to Annie. “I could call up lesser spirits, or greater, but the former would know nothing, and the latter— well, they would probably know nothing, either, besides being extremely dangerous. I think we should leave it for tonight.”

  “The Child—Eriost
—mentioned someone he called the Devil,” Annie said. “Is there really a Devil, like they tell you in church?”

  “There are hundreds,” Bartlemy said cheerfully. “Or rather, there are hundreds of spirits who have assumed that role. There is one in particular, however, who has always been at his best in the part. That was the one to whom Eriost referred.”

  “Can you question him?” Annie asked abruptly. “If he had dealings with Josevius …”

  “That is not proven.”

  “The seeresses said … the doom is in Nathan. I have to know more. For his sake.” And for mine. “Is it too—too risky, calling up the Devil?”

  “We will see,” Bartlemy said with resignation. “It is certainly too risky, and probably a waste of time, but… we will see. Wait here. There is something I need. Don’t go near the boundary.”

  He went out, and Annie was left alone, except for the dog—alone with the magic circle. The circumference hissed softly as the flameline sputtered and sparked; behind it, the spellfire still flickered, its light shrunken to a dancing glimmer that barely reached beyond the hearth. The room seemed very dark. Although the circle was empty, Annie found herself increasingly aware of its potential; it appeared somehow alive, expectant, as if awaiting an occupant. Without Bartlemy’s comforting presence Annie felt the magic was not on hold, but running on by itself, and something not conjured—an intruder, unwanted, perhaps deadly—might yet come through. She was suddenly very glad Hoover was there, his warm strong body between her and the spellring, ears pricked as he stared fixedly into the gloom.

  Bartlemy was gone several minutes. At the heart of the circle, the darkness grew a little darker. Annie thought at first it was her imagination; then she was sure there was something there, a black shape crouching or hunched up, obscuring the far side of the perimeter. She felt Hoover stiffen and rise to his feet; her fingers tightened on a handful of his fur. He was making a noise in his throat, a distant rumble like the beginning of a growl. She gazed and gazed into the spellring, trying to see, trying not to see, still unable to distinguish anything clearly. There was a pulse in her neck pounding so hard she felt slightly sick.

  At last she heard Bartlemy’s footsteps returning, the opening of the door. For an instant from the shadow in the circle two red eyes stared back at her—then Bartlemy came in, and the shadow was gone.

  “There was something there,” Annie said. Her voice was unsteady.

  Hoover had ceased growling and made a sound like a canine grunt.

  “It is possible,” Bartlemy said. “A magic circle, once opened, draws many things. There are primitive elementals specifically attracted to acts of sorcery. Don’t worry: whatever it was, it’s no longer there.”

  “But… but… it saw me,” Annie stammered. “You told me, spirits summoned to the circle only see the Questioner, and then not clearly. But this … thing … saw me.”

  “I doubt it,” said Bartlemy. “It may have been trying to peer outside the boundary, and you got in the way. However, if you’re serious, we should call a halt now.”

  Annie struggled to pull herself together. “No,” she said. “It—it was nothing. I don’t want to stop now.”

  “As you wish. But move your chair back; you are too close. From now on, whatever happens, don’t speak, don’t get up. Hoover will look after you. The spirit I am about to summon is one to whom the usual rules don’t apply. I will do what I can to restrict the manifestation— without limitations, calling him would be far too hazardous. But be wary, stay silent, don’t interfere. All right?”

  Annie said “Yes” and pushed back her chair. Bartlemy was making a break in the spellring, stepping through in order to place some small object at the center. His movements were careful and very deliberate but even so, as he bent to set it down on the floor, Annie thought a wisp of shadow slipped through the gap behind him. The impression was so fleeting she could not be certain of it, and although Hoover turned his head he made no noise. Bartlemy withdrew, sealing the perimeter again, and began an incantation longer than any he had uttered before. The firelines burned brighter; smoke rose from the rim of the circle, and here and there tiny tongues of flame probed upward. Now Annie could make out the object in the center, a wooden figurine about a foot and a half high, sun-scorched, weather-cracked, age-blackened, its original shape all but lost after the battering of Time. It seemed to have a suggestion of goaty legs tucked under its belly and a broad head on top, with worn stumps for horns and the remnants of a malevolent grin cut into its cheeks. One arm was broken off, the other folded across its chest. It must once have been crudely carved but erosion had given it an air of mystery; the very blurring of its features made them somehow more evil. Nonetheless, Annie didn’t find it really frightening.

  Not till it spoke.

  “Bale,” Bartlemy said—he pronounced it as in hay bale, though she wondered later if it was a corruption of Baal.

  And the statue answered. Its wooden mouth moved stiffly; a voice scraped from the harshness of its throat.

  “It is seven hundred years since any called me in that name. Let the summoner identify himself!”

  “Who I am does not matter,” Bartlemy said prudently. He had told Annie long before that the spellmaster should never give his name to the spirit he summons. In the world of magic, names have power, and if the spirit does not know him it is safest to leave it in ignorance. “But I recall something of your history—seven hundred years ago. The people of the village offered to bind themselves to you for all time, them and their descendants, if you would keep the Roses from their door. But the Roses came anyway, and they all died, and the priest in his last hours called you accursed and burned the chapel around your image. Now even the ruins are gone.”

  “I ordered them to build a barrier and let no one out, no one in,” the statue said, in a reminiscent vein. “But there was a woman whose husband returned from somewhere far to the south; she stole secretly to meet him and came secretly back, and he gave her the Roses in recompense. They called me faithless among demons, but it was they who broke faith. The woman betrayed them, betrayed me.”

  “There’s always one,” Bartlemy said.

  “Bale was a collector of villages, a god of the common people. But I am Azmordis, Utzmord, Babbaloukis, Ingré Manu! I have collected whole cities and kingdoms, and the great and the good have bowed down before me!”

  “Not the good,” Bartlemy said gently. “And it is Bale whom I invoke. As Bale I summoned you, as Bale I bind you, in this image and this circle. It is as Bale I address you, and only Bale.”

  “What bargain do you seek with Bale, mortal? The Roses will not come again. What is the price on your soul?”

  “No bargain,” Bartlemy said. “Only a few questions.”

  “Questions!” A shudder ran through the idol; its wooden eyelids opened on cracks of livid radiance. “You called me here for questions? What am I—some Greek pythoness or gypsy soothsayer? I, Azmordis—”

  “Bale,” Bartlemy said. “You are Bale.”

  “Do not trifle with me, charlatan, lest your simple magics falter. The circle will not hold me long!”

  “Long enough. And my question is not trifling, though it might appear so. The sisterhood tell me the hour of Doom draws near. No doubt you will know of it.”

  “I have seen many hours of Doom come and go. What is one more?”

  “This could be the climax of an old, old spell, a spell that may have been set in motion by one Josevius Grimling Thorn, called Grimthorn. Rumor has it he sold his soul to the Devil. Did you have him in your keeping?”

  There was a pause before the idol answered. “I remember him,” it said at last. “A petty wizard whose ambition far outreached his powers. He sought me once, but I turned him away. What would I want with the soul of such as he—a soiled, shopworn thing without fire or fury? He wanted to be elevated to the Seraphain, to fly with my Fellangels … Athamis! Incarnu! My highest servants!… I spurned him with the scorn he deserved. He had
nothing to offer me. He was already bought and sold.”

  “By whom?” Bartlemy said softly.

  “What matter? Some minor spirit of no account. He hinted at a connection beyond the Gate, and called on the Ultimate Powers, but they did not hear him. He talked big and thought small. There are many such, especially now. The men the world calls great are no longer heroes and villains, only overblown egos with little substance behind the celluloid mask. They sell themselves for mere money when once they would have asked for the hand of Helen and half the kingdom. And now I must wear a suit, and sit in the Dark Tower dealing with corporations, where in other times I dealt with warriors and kings.”

  “Depressing for you,” Bartlemy murmured.

  “You are soft-spoken, wizard, quiet and cunning. No doubt we have met before, in the days of lime and Roses; perhaps we will meet hereafter. I will remember you. But you will not conjure me in this form again. Bale was a little god for the little folk; his time is done—his time and theirs. This idol is old and rotten. Your circle fails. It takes more than deadwood and spellpowder to hold me—”

  The statue began to swell and split; a glow brighter than magnesium shone through the cracks. Instinctively, Annie shut her eyes. She heard Bartlemy’s cry of warning—“Cover your face!”—his desperate rush of Atlantean—a report like cannon fire as the idol burst. Flying splinters sprayed the room; one embedded itself in her hand. When she opened her eyes again Bartlemy had switched on the lights; there was blood running down her arm. His hands, too, were bloodied, and the circle was broken and scattered. A ceramic vase had fallen to the floor and rolled intact on the folded rug; books were tumbled across the table; all the pictures hung akimbo.

  “Has he gone?” Annie said.

  “Yes. I called him as Bale, and as Bale he had to stay—or go, in the end. At least he was sufficiently curious to talk to me first. Not that your question was answered, but it tied up the loose ends.” He took her hand, extracting the splinter, which was over an inch long. “I have a salve for this, then we’ll clear up. After that, I think we both need a drink.”