“‘Tis a good idea,” the Widow said, much relieved to learn that this half-Faerie man did not intend to take her daughters with him to the sorcerer’s home. “When wilt thou make this attempt?”
“Tomorrow,” John answered. He frowned. “Hugh’s been peevish and unquiet these last few days; I think delay might be unwise.”
Rosamund and Blanche exchanged glances. “Then give us your scrying-spell to study,” Blanche said for both of them, “and we’ll be ready on the morrow.”
Furgen’s plans to best Madini had at first gone smoothly. The water creature had had no difficulty in abstracting Dee’s lamp from Madini’s quarters. It then went swiftly through the streams and rivers to a shadowed, silent pool deep in the Faerie forest. There it stood, waist deep in the mirror-dark water between the shining blooms of the water lilies, waiting for Dee and Kelly to try to use their crystal.
For seven hours Furgen crouched, motionless and silent, while dawn brightened into daylight and minnows nibbled at the webs between its toes. At last Ned Kelly’s face appeared in the side of the lamp. Furgen waited a moment longer, hoping Dee would come as well, but he did not, for Kelly’s quarrels with his partner had reached the point where Kelly had at last decided to continue his experiments in gold-making alone. Furgen had hoped to snare both the wizards, but it was tired of waiting, so with a flick of its long, grey fingers it set its carefully crafted enchantment in motion.
The faint glow of the lamp dimmed and turned from gold to tarnished silver. Kelly’s eyes, staring from the side of the lamp, went wide, and he tried to draw away. The picture on the lamp followed him, and Furgen smiled with all its pointed teeth. The link was now established, from Furgen through the lamp and crystal straight to Kelly. “Come,” the water creature whispered. “Come to me, and bring the crystal.”
“Be gone, foul spirit!” Kelly said hoarsely, his words echoing along the intangible link.
Furgen chuckled. So long as Kelly bent his mind to dismissing it, the water creature was entirely safe, for it was not present. “Come to me,” it said again, and in the Mortlak study the words seemed to issue from the air at Kelly’s shoulder. “Bring me the crystal; come.”
To Furgen’s surprise, Kelly did not move. “Come out,” Furgen spat. “Come to the river, and bring the globe.”
“I adjure thee, in the name of God: be gone, and trouble me no more!” Kelly cried, raising his fists to his temples.
“Come,” was Furgen’s answer. Its cold hands stroked the lamp gently, and Kelly shuddered convulsively.
“No! Go hence, go away, be gone!” Kelly cried. He pressed his palms over his ears, then suddenly turned and all but ran from the study.
Furgen hissed in annoyance. Kelly was stronger than it had anticipated, and it was plain that the water creature’s spell would not quickly force the mortal to bring the crystal out from behind Dee’s protective spells. Now that the link was established, however, there was no need for Kelly to be present in the room where the crystal stood; Furgen could reach him anywhere. “Come,” the water creature repeated with monotonous insistence. “Come to the river, with the crystal. Come.”
The struggle between Furgen and Kelly was the direct cause of the distress that John had noted in the bear. The power of the crystal was Hugh‘s, and its every use touched him, no matter where he was or what his condition. The mortal spells of Dee and Kelly had affected him very little, but Madini and Furgen were of Faerie, and each time they used the link between the lamp and the crystal Hugh felt a little more of himself being chipped away. Soon there would be nothing left but the bear.
By the time Rosamund and Blanche arrived, Furgen and Kelly had been locked in a battle of wills for nearly four days, and the bear was whining and pacing constantly back and forth between two trees. The girls soothed him as best they could. When he was calmer, they laid out the tools they had brought for the scrying spell: a flat bowl, a flagon of rosewater, a sachet of violets, and a small, silver mirror. Blanche put the bowl on the ground, wedging it carefully with stones and small twigs so that it would not tip. Rosamund poured the violets into the bottom of the bowl and set the silver mirror on top of them. Then, while Blanche whispered the words of the spell, she let the rosewater run down the side of the bowl until the mirror was just covered.
The mirror dulled, then brightened, and the two girls bent over it eagerly. John stood in the narrow passageway between Dee’s house and the next, turning a small ring over in his hand and watching the entrance of the passage. Suddenly he vanished, and the girls gasped, but the vision in the mirror remained otherwise clear. The picture began to shift, as if it followed someone, and Blanche let out the breath she had been holding. The two girls watched in fascination as the miniature scene moved through the kitchen garden to the door above the water stairs.
John had to wait until someone left the house; the Dee household was far too conscious of spirits for him to risk a cook or manservant sighting a door opening and closing by itself. The wait was not a long one, for Mistress Dee kept an exemplary household and the servants were constantly coming and going, fetching herbs for the cook, dumping buckets of dirty scrubwater into the river, running in and out of the house on a thousand different errands. John slipped inside with one of the kitchen maids and began methodically searching the house.
The kitchen, buttery, and larder were unlikely places to find evidence of spell-working. John gave them each a cursory look and went on toward the front of the house. The great hall was all but empty; a settle with its back to the fireplace, three joint-stools shoved against the wall, and a faded hanging of ancient lineage were the sum of its furnishings. In one corner a heavy wooden staircase led upward. John gave a cursory look behind the hanging, then crossed to the stairs and started up to the second floor.
The gallery above looked as if it would take more time to search. John went to the first of the chests that stood along the walls, but as he opened it, he heard voices from the next room. Carefully, he closed the lid, then walked the length of the gallery to the door at the opposite end. Just before he reached it, the door flew open, and Ned Kelly’s voice came clear and loud through the opening.
Once Furgen’s spell was cast, it did not matter whether Kelly was gazing into the crystal or not. Furgen’s whispers followed him wherever he went, so long as Furgen continued to focus his attention on the lamp. At first, Kelly had been able to keep Master Dee unaware of his difficulties, but his irritability and unusually preoccupied state of mind finally drove Dee to confront him.
“What ails you, Ned?” Dee demanded with, for him, unusual force. “And say not that ‘tis naught; you’ve been unlike yourself these four days past.”
“‘Tis more than nothing, true,” Kelly answered with a sigh, “but I know not how best to say what ’tis.”
“Tell me howe‘er you can,” Dee said.
“I am ... most sorely troubled by some spiritual creature,” Kelly admitted after a moment’s pause. His eyes avoided the gazing table and the crystal resting in its center. “It sitteth on my left shoulder, here, and whispers ‘come’ and gurgles of the river. Methinks it calls me on to drown myself.”
Dee stared at him with an appalled expression. “Nay, Ned! You must not do so! ‘Twere deadly sin to kill yourself.”
“To kill is deadly? Never say so,” Kelly responded sourly. “Be sure that I’ve no wish to, but this creature’s whispering’s like to drive me mad.”
“Resist it!” Dee said, growing more agitated. “Think of our work!”
“Thinking’s been no help to me,” Kelly said, irritated. “My need’s to rid myself of this tormenter, not to think on’t.”
“I’ll to my books at once,” Dee said, brightening a little. “We’ll find some way to accomplish this removal. Belike the spirit of the crystal—”
“Enough!” Kelly shouted. “God knows, you’re as bad as this spirit that troubles me. Next time I’ll heed it when it says, Come away and drown!”
“Nay, Ned, y
ou must not!” Dee said. “‘Tis some evil wight that seeks to do you injury.”
“‘Tis injury enough to stay here!” Kelly snapped. He strode to the door of the study and threw it open with a crash that made Dee wince and gave a moment’s pause to the invisible John outside. “I’d rather drown than hear more of this prating.”
“I will not let you go,” Dee said, grabbing Kelly’s arm.
Furgen, who had been watching all this through the lamp, chose this moment to exert its influence. Whether Kelly stayed or went mattered little to the water creature, but it was clear that if Kelly left now he would not take the crystal with him, and Furgen’s time was growing short. So, grimacing with effort, Furgen made one final try at getting Kelly to scoop up the crystal and take it with him.
John reached the open door and peered through it just as Kelly lurched backward three paces, wrenching his arm from Dee’s grasp. Dee went after him, determined to keep him in the room by force, if necessary. On the far side of the room, the crystal sat in the center of the gazing table, light dancing and shifting in its center. The sight attracted John’s attention immediately, and he recognized at once the similarity between the glow at the heart of the crystal and the shifting light of the Faerie border. He felt a surge of excitement, and since the doorway was now clear he ignored the scuffle on his left and started forward.
He could not pass the door. John, whose blood was half of Faerie and who wore Faerie magic on his finger, was barred from John Dee’s study by the same spells and inscriptions that kept Madini and her friends at bay. Though he fought with all his might, he could not cross the threshold. He stared at the crystal in chagrin, sure that it was what he had come for and unable to reach it.
Furgen’s face appeared in the crystal, contorted in agony. John jerked back in surprise. The vision winked out, and the light within the crystal dimmed to a glowing pinpoint. Simultaneously, Kelly ceased his struggle with Dee and said in tones of deep relief, “‘Tis gone!”
“Praise Heaven!” Dee replied. He was panting and disheveled, and rather more the worse for wear than his companion. “Now, come away and rest, and tell me your tale in full. We’ll work no more until the morrow.”
“Nay, I’m fit for it,” Kelly said, but he gave the crystal an uneasy look as he spoke, and he did not resist as his companion drew him toward the door.
John recovered from his surprise in time to move out of the way before Dee ran into him. He hesitated briefly, then followed the two men. The object of his search was in the study, where he could not venture, but he might still learn something from the wizards’ conversation.
Rosamund and Blanche, watching the mirror intently, knew at once when John broke off his hunt to investigate the study. They saw the door fly open as John approached it, though they did not hear Kelly’s shouting; their enchanted mirror could not reflect sound. At the sight of the two sorcerers struggling, Blanche started and nearly struck the viewing bowl in her surprise. Rosamund’s cry of warning was drowned by a howl from Hugh.
The heads of both girls jerked in the bear’s direction. Hugh was rocking back and forth on his haunches, shaking his head as if to dislodge a bee. “Hugh, what is it?” Blanche cried, but all he could do was whine.
Rosamund glanced back at their scrying mirror and clutched Blanche’s arm. “Look!”
The mirror, which should have reflected all of John Dee’s study, showed only the crystal. Light shifted and flowed in its center, swirling around a central point from which three tendrils reached out. Two of the tendrils were only partially visible; their ends vanished off the edges of the mirror, out of sight. The third seemed to rise impossibly out of the surface of the mirror, connecting the image of the crystal to Hugh with a thin, almost invisible cord of light.
“No!” Blanche cried, and she leaned forward and knocked over the bowl that held the mirror.
The tendril of light that was the link between Hugh and the crystal vanished from sight as the direct connection forged by the scrying spell was broken. The sudden change upset the balance within the crystal, and Kelly, still fighting Furgen’s spell with all his will, was able to break free at last. The recoil from the two links, one severely reduced, the other completely shattered, surged down the sole remaining link and overwhelmed Furgen. For a brief instant, the crystal reflected the water creature’s agony; then the image vanished, having been seen by John alone, and Furgen slumped lifeless over the melted remains of the lamp he had been working through.
In the instant between Blanche’s instinctive action and Furgen’s death, the air of Faerie trembled with the faint, tingling vibration that heralds the presence of great power. The Queen of Faerie felt it, and her eyes narrowed dangerously, for such strong spells may never be cast in Faerie without the knowledge and permission of the Queen. Madini felt the tremor, too, and, suspecting something of its cause, she impartially cursed John and Hugh, her fellow plotters, and the fate that kept her bound to the court for another day. All she could do was to hide her anger and misgivings, and hope that she could retrieve the situation once her service at the court was done.
CHAPTER ·NINETEEN
“When the dwarf saw what they had done, he screamed, ‘You toadstool! Wasn’t cutting off the end enough for you? No, now you have to slice off the best part! How can I let myself be seen, disfigured this way? I wish you may run the soles off your shoes!’ Then he took up a bag of pearls which he had hidden among the rushes and left without saying another word. ”
WHEN BLANCHE BROKE THE SCRYING SPELL, HUGH’S spasms stopped at once. The girls stayed with him long enough to be certain he had not been harmed, then gathered up their things and left. Much subdued, they headed home to wait for John, hoping his story would explain at least some of what had happened.
They did not have long to wait. John arrived barely an hour later, his expression grim. He and Rosamund disagreed almost at once over who was to tell his story first; each of them wanted to hear the other’s tale before telling his own. The Widow intervened when the argument seemed about to deteriorate too far, and decreed that Rosamund and Blanche should begin. Rosamund showed a tendency to pout at this decision, but Blanche accepted it without demur. She gave John a quick summary of the strange behavior of the scrying mirror, its apparent effect on Hugh, and her own instinctive reaction and its result.
“The crystal filled the mirror entirely?” John asked when she had finished.
Blanche and Rosamund nodded.
“And all you saw within was light? Are you certain there was no image?”
Blanche looked doubtful, but Rosamund shook her head positively. “There was no image, only light, until Blanche overset the bowl and broke the scrying spell. I am sure of it.”
“This is strange indeed,” John murmured. He shook himself, then gave a straightforward account of his own experiences.
“And since I could learn no more where I was, I followed the wizards,” he finished.
“And did you learn more?” Rosamund asked pointedly when John showed no sign of continuing.
“‘Tis conjecture, in the main, pieced together from their conversation,” John said. “The wizards have stolen Hugh’s magic, and ’tis prisoned in that crystal that you saw. I think they do not know what they have done, for they spoke only of ‘Faerie power’ and never of Hugh, and they guard their workroom against all Faerie. ’Tis why I could not enter and take back the crystal while they fought; there is enough of Faerie in me to give their warding spells some purchase.”
“Then Blanche or I must find a way,” Rosamund said, as if it were the obvious solution. “We’re only mortal; spells to frustrate Faerie will not ward us off.”
“No,” said the Widow with absolute finality. “I forbid it. Neither thou nor thy sister will go near the house of Master Dee, now or in the future, and there’s an end on’t.”
“But, Mother—” Rosamund started.
“No! Thou‘st done more than is wise already; this time I’ll not be swayed against my b
etter judgment.”
“How else may we free Hugh?” Blanche asked with a calm and overly reasonable air that betrayed her inner tension. “We cannot abandon him now, and I see no other way to help him.”
“Aye, and ‘twill be the end of all this business,” Rosamund added swiftly. “Will it not, John?”
“Nay, ask me not to add my voice to yours,” John said. “In this, I agree with your mother. And I think there is one other path still left to try, ere we are driven to such desperate measures as you propose.”
“What path is that?” Blanche asked warily.
“One that’s mine to deal with,” John answered. “Nay, hear me out! I fear we’ve learned all that we can from Masters Dee and Kelly, and I doubt that we can steal the crystal from them. Their skill’s not small, and they are well protected. But the wizards are not our only rivals in this matter.”
“The oakman, who stole the lamp!” Rosamund interrupted in sudden enlightenment.
John nodded. “And the water fay whose image I saw in the crystal. There’s more here than we know, and till we learn it we may do Hugh more hurt than help by descending on the wizards alone.”
Rosamund was disposed to argue this conclusion, but her efforts were foredoomed to failure. The Widow supported John, for while she was not pleased by the thought of still more Faerie involvement in their affairs, she was far more unhappy with Rosamund’s proposed invasion of Dee’s house. Blanche, too, took John’s side; the hint of harm to Hugh had been all that was needed to set her firmly against any precipitate action.
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