The Bohemian Magician

by A. L. Sirois

  “I daresay,” Guilhem said drily. “But regarding your home, why do you not throw out what you don’t need and keep what you do?”

  She glared at him. “I need all of it!” She thumped her staff in the snow. “I come not to your castle and tell you how to manage your affairs. Eh?”

  “...No.”

  “Then do you have the courtesy not to criticize me about how I tend to mine.”

  “My apologies.” Though the woman was prickly in the extreme, he needed her help; so, he said nothing in admonishment for her rudeness.

  “Ehmm. Now, what is it you wish of me, duke?”

  Guilhem cleared his throat. “Well, as you may know, I have lately been to the Holy Land. And, and then I was in Bohemia for a while.”

  “Yes, thrown there by gnomes.” She grinned.

  He felt his face going red. “How—?”

  “I scry these things,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. “I dispense charms to the peasants, but my knowledge runs deeper than that. The Aquitaine is not my homeland; but I am here now, and I find it prudent to understand those among whom I live. To that end I keep myself abreast of what transpires with its prominent citizens. You, of course, are first among them.”

  “This is not your homeland, you say... what has brought you here?”

  She replied to his question with one of her own. “Have you never had a hunch, a feeling that you should do such-and-such or go somewhere in particular, at a particular time?”

  “Yes, to be sure.”

  She raised a finger. “There, you see? Augury is based on such messages from the wider world, and if you studied it as long as I have, you would have a deeper understanding and pay more attention to them.”

  Guilhem shook his head. “Are you saying that augury brought you to the Aquitaine for some reason?”

  “Yes, and I know not what it is. The information I glean is not shown to me as though I were reading a book; it is vaguer than that. It comes in flashes. I have come here to live because it is somehow crucial that I do so. I am meant to.”

  “I still do not understand,” said Guilhem, shaking his head.

  She growled. “Nor do I, my lord, nor do I. But I have learned that I cannot ignore these intuitions, you know. This one is strong. It bids me remain. I have been waiting for additional insight.” She peered up at him through her tangled hair. “These things mature in their own time, until they are born, as a child gestates in the womb until the moment is right for its birth. Meanwhile I act as a midwife and I mix potions for silly, lovesick girls.” She shrugged. “I don’t love this place, this Aquitaine of yours. I would not be here were I not compelled to be. But here I am, and here I will remain, until my purpose comes clear to me.” She cackled. “You do produce good wine hereabouts, I will say, and that has helped me adjust.”

  “Plus she talks to the fairies all the time,” said the bird. “Don’t you, Mama?”

  “Do you hold your tongue, Rámon. Now, Duke Guilhem, I want to hear what you have to say. Why have you come to see me? For my divination has not told me this.”

  “I encountered an ifrit in Bohemia,” Guilhem said, feeling most uncomfortable. “I was... instrumental in freeing it from captivity. I didn’t mean to, I assure you.” He sighed. “Out of some misplaced sense of gratitude it has trailed me here. It has been reported as a werewolf, but it is not that.”

  “This is what comes of meddling in affairs that do not concern you,” said Rámon in a snide tone.

  Guilhem, losing his temper, tore off his hat and flung it down into the snow. “Must this aggravating creature be present while we speak?” he demanded of Oriabel.

  “Rámon is my familiar and he is always at my side,” Oriabel said. “I admit that he can be provoking.” She motioned to the bird, which flew down to perch on her shoulder. She murmured something to it that Guilhem could not hear. The bird seemed to settle into itself. “He’ll give us no more trouble,” the witch said.

  “Which is more than can be said of the ifrit,” Guilhem said, pacing back and forth in front of her lair. “I want to know if you can do anything to convince or force it to leave. If you can help me I will give you two thick, warm bearskins for your cave. You can use one as a door and wrap yourself in the other while you sleep.”

  “Two? Eh, eh. I knew there was some sort of malign influence come hereabouts of late; but, as Rámon suggests, I do not bother with that which does not concern me, so I left it to its own devices. Let me must ponder this.” Oriabel seated herself on a stump and fell silent. Once or twice Rámon made as if to speak, but each time she quieted the bird with a look. At one point, she rose to her feet and Guilhem looked at her in expectation, but she merely vanished into the darkness of her cave. From within Guilhem heard a cork being drawn out of a bottle.

  He ground his teeth.

  “Patience, patience,” said Oriabel’s voice, slightly slurred. She wandered out of the cave and sat down on the stump once more.

  Guilhem resumed pacing. The witch’s eyes followed him, back and forth, back and forth, but appeared unfocused. At last she spoke.

  “The beast is in the ruined tower, you say?”

  “Yes. I can’t see how it can fit itself inside, but it does. There it lurks.”

  “Very well. I will go forth and engage it and we shall see what we shall see. Do you return to me in a week’s time.”

  “Why a week?”

  “When you ride to battle, you must first prepare yourself. Is this not true?”

  “Of course.”

  “So it is with me. I know little of ifrits and their ways and must study, cast charts, and the like. I cannot simply walk up to it unprepared and ask it prettily to leave your people alone.”

  Rámon sniggered. Guilhem ignored him. “Very well,” he said. “One week.” Guilhem returned to his castle, mightily dissatisfied with Oriabel, her counsel, and her familiar.

  Over the next few days his frustration and impatience increased as the ifrit’s malign influence spread across the countryside. Savage fights broke out between neighbors who had in the past been content simply to ignore each other. There was a still birth among the peasants, and another baby was born with a caul across its face. Dogs and other animals were beaten, and any cat caught in the open was set upon and killed for fear of its partnership with the Devil. Gatherings of more than three or four people were sure to turn into brawls. Animals sickened in their pens, falling ill to mysterious maladies. People as well suffered illnesses, breaking out with sores and developing ugly bruises. Rumors of plague were rife in the castle, and despite the approaching Christmas holiday any air of celebration was swamped by mutters of fearful expectation. Yet attendance in the castle’s chapel at the hours of worship dwindled.

  The “werewolf” claimed more victims. Guilhem gritted his teeth against revealing what he knew, for fear of blame. Yet he could not rid himself of the certain knowledge that it was his fault: he had, after all, accidentally or not, freed the monster and it had followed him home. He could not escape the guilt as he tossed from side to side in his bed at night.

  The one person to whom he confessed the truth was Phillipa, and only because he felt he could trust her and he desperately needed to unburden himself. She listened wide-eyed as he told her the tale of the gnomes, his involuntary sojourn in Bohemia, and his accidental freeing of the ifrit.

  “This is rather a lot to take in,” she said after sitting silently for a while. Her face had gone pale. “You say the fey have favored you since you were a youth?”

  “Alas, yes. It’s nothing I wanted, believe me.”

  “And it is no werewolf terrorizing us after all,” she said, “but an Arabian spirit, a djinn of some sort.”

  “Alas, yes.”

  “I suppose this proves that you were indeed in the Holy Land,” she said, “doing something, the Lord above knows what.”

  “Fighting Saracens, as I have said, woman.”

  She shrugged. “I must take you at your word about that. St
ill, there is now before us the problem of this ifrit, as you call it. Well. The way forward seems clear. You must kill it or at least render it harmless, Guilhem.”

  “But—”

  “But what, sir? If you leave this menace unchecked, what will be left of Poictiers? Will all be reduced to filth and pestilence until the thing departs of its own accord?”

  Guilhem clenched his fists. “I have sought advice from the witch-woman, Oriabel, concerning this matter.”

  “Oriabel?” Phillipa laughed her merry, tinkling laugh. “A purveyor of charms and potions.”

  “She is more than that, I think,” he said in a low voice.

  Phillipa scoffed. “She’d better be, to combat this threat you have inflicted upon us.”

  “I am to consult her again in five days’ time.”

  “Five days! I will pray that we are all still alive in five days.”

  The time passed slowly. Twice, when he was certain that no one marked his movements, Guilhem went to confer with the ifrit, and begged it to cease its marauding behavior, but it refused.

  “Despite the unpleasant cold, I am enjoying myself,” it said. “I believe I will tarry here until such time as I feel moved to depart.”

  In a state of near-frantic desperation Guilhem returned to Oriabel’s cave two days before week’s end. The witch did not seem surprised to see him.

  Nor did she have good news. “I confronted the ifrit,” she said. “But as I suspected, it is too powerful a being for me. A seasoned magician with years of experience might successfully combat such a thing, but I have little learning on that level. I was forced to withdraw, with its laughter booming around me.

  “However,” she went on, “I believe I can keep the beast bottled up in its tower for a while.”

  They were sitting at a table inside her cave home, with its smoke-blackened walls and hand-made wooden furniture, including the chairs on which they sat. Bottles and alembics half-filled with weird potions bubbled and stank, though they sat on tables and not over flames. Books lay scattered here and there. To Guilhem’s eye, the place seemed to be in even more disarray than her usual home.

  He stared at her in disbelief. “A while? A while? How long is ‘a while’? And what am I supposed to do in the interim?”

  “Listen to me, duke,” she said. “Our adversary comes from the scorching desert lands of Araby, does he not? He has not before been exposed to snow and ice and frigid winds. Our winter has only just begun, and he is already uncomfortable. He draws sustaining warmth from the blood of those upon whom he preys. In Mojmir’s tower he was the source of energy, and was used as such by the magician for his own ends. When you freed him—” She held up a hand as Guilhem bridled, saying, “I blame you not, my lord! Hear me out, I beg you.” Guilhem subsided, glowering.

  She said, “This is the beast’s first winter away from the burning sands of his home when he is not imprisoned inside Mojmir’s tower. He is, as I say, experiencing extreme cold for the first time in his centuries of enchanted life.” She took a long drink from the flagon of wine at her elbow. “After much study I am confident that I can exploit his susceptibility to cold. I agree that he must be dealt with in a permanent manner, because he is certain to learn how to compensate for it by the time another winter rolls around. I propose, therefore, to cast a spell that will cloak his lair in extreme cold and put him into a sleep like that of a hibernating bear until the spring thaw.”

  Guilhem drummed his fingers on the table. “You propose to buy us time,” he said.

  “Precisely.”

  Guilhem leapt to his feet. “It will not do, Oriabel! Such a course of action merely delays the inevitable! What is the thing doing here anyway? Surely it can find enough victims in its native land to slake its thirst for blood.”

  Oriabel shook her head. “The situation is subtler than that, my lord duke. The ifrit wants people to believe in it because the more who do, the more powerful it becomes. In Saracen lands the people are turning away from the old ways. This has been going on since the days of their prophet, Muhammed, six hundred years past. His religion forbids belief in Old Ones, as Christianity does in fairies and other pagan sprites. The ifrit finds Christians—Europeans—generally less sophisticated and educated and more superstitious than Arabs, more willing to cling to their pagan ways, so it has decided to stop here, in Poictiers. It waxes stronger, whereas in its homeland it grew weaker year by year.”

  Guilhem scrubbed his face with one hand. What she was saying made sense. The ifrit’s weakened condition might well have been what enabled Mojmir to capture and enslave it in the first place. “Thus, each day it remains here, the more difficult it will be to dislodge it and overcome its influence.”

  “Alas, yes. I have some abilities when it comes to thaumaturgy, but never would I call myself a wizard.” She made a wry face. “Not yet, anyway. What we must do is find a sorcerer who can defeat such a being.”

  Guilhem grunted. “Where might such a one be found?”

  “It requires learning on the level of the legendary Merlin,” Oriabel said. “There is none of his stature to be found in England any longer, let alone in our lands. Because Mojmir captured the thing in the first place, he is the one most likely to have information that will help us get rid of it for good and all.”

  “Are you saying that I must return to Bohemia and seek out this Mojmir and then petition him for his assistance?” Guilhem snorted. “I can think of several points working against this plan. Considering that it was I who set the stinking thing free, thus enabling it to destroy Mojmir’s stronghold and eliminate his influence over Duke Bořivoj’s realm, I doubt the fellow would be particularly happy to see me! Eh? Far from helping me, he is more likely to extract revenge.”

  “I admit there may well be some truth in what you say,” Oriabel replied. “Yet do I see no alternative.”

  “None? You’re certain? What about exorcism?”

  “Exorcism,” said Oriabel with a sneer. “A rite contrived by those who profess a name and a power they have no authority to command. No, it would have no effect on an ifrit.” She coughed several times.

  Guilhem sat back in his chair. “I had thought to stay home and lead a comfortable life for a while,” he muttered, looking down at the top of the rough-hewn table. “I see that such is not my destiny.”

  “Not yet, duke. My own destiny has brought me here, to your lands.” She shrugged. “Perhaps to help you. Eh? Yours would seem to take you to Bohemia... at least, for now.”

  He ground his teeth. “When must I depart? And where, exactly, am I going? I don’t know where Mojmir hid himself after his tower was destroyed.”

  “As to the first, there is no time to be lost,” she said. “Once spring arrives, the ifrit will wake from his forced hibernation, and will be enraged in the extreme. I calculate that there are perhaps three months of leeway, but it were better to plan for less.”

  Guilhem stood up from the table and paced around the cave, cursing luridly. “I have only just returned home! If I leave now I won’t even be able to enjoy Christmas with my wife and children.”

  “Think then of what waits in the tower,” Oriabel said. “They may not see another Yuletide if that beast has its will.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IN WHICH GUILHEM UNWILLINGLY TAKES ON A PARTNER

  Over the next two days Guilhem threw himself into preparations for his return to Bohemia. As he had known it would, the news dismayed and angered Phillipa.

  “You will miss Christmas! And the arrival of the new year.”

  “Well I know it,” he said. “Believe me, it is not what I want, but unless I take steps now to do something about the ifrit, we will all regret it come spring.” And to that she had no answer.

  This time there would be no magical transport facilitated by gnomes. His first decision was to travel alone. The way would take him through lands that were relatively well-known, and certainly less dangerous, than those of the Holy Land. Travel at this time of year was
always problematic, due to the possibility of encountering bad weather, but he could not allow that to affect his decision.

  Despite Phillipa’s unhappiness about his absence for the holiday, Guilhem, his mind occupied with details of his upcoming journey and the threat hanging over his realm, had in any event little heart for seasonal festivities. He and Piers, his new seneschal, spent many hours studying maps, marking out alternate routes.

  He had revealed to no one, other than Phillipa and Oriabel, the true nature of the horror haunting the land. The “werewolf” had to date left no survivors to counter Guilhem’s story.

  To forestall uncomfortable questions—and incidentally avoid revealing his helplessness to deal with the supernatural threat posed by the ifrit¬—Guilhem claimed authoritatively that there had been no further werewolf attacks after the weather grew cold because of the beast’s need to hibernate through the winter.

  As plotted, his journey would last about sixty days, taking him northeastward through Frankish territory and into lands overseen by the remnants of the still powerful Holy Roman Empire. These included the Kingdom of Arles, which had been Lower Burgundy until the ruler of Upper Burgundy, Rudolph II, took it over. There was still some bad blood between the two regions, Guilhem knew, but he had no allegiance to either side and so anticipated no trouble. Then through Swabia and Bavaria, home of his crusading nemesis Welf, before arriving in Bohemia.

  “If I am fortunate with the weather,” he told Piers, “I should be on the road no longer than a fortnight. Possibly less. I need not burden myself with supplies, as I will travel through civilized lands and can easily replenish my food and water.”

  “There will be brigands,” Piers said. “You are obviously well-to-do, and that will attract attention.”

  Guilhem nodded. “There is much in what you say. I will therefore clothe myself in worn garments and ride my old mare, Felice, so as not to tempt thieves.” He grinned. “Not that I fear them. In my current mood, I’d be happy to put any robber to the sword.”