The Bohemian Magician

by A. L. Sirois

  She shrugged. “That, I cannot say. But I suspect they are made of ectoplasm, the nonmaterial substance of which ghosts and other spirits are composed.”

  Within moments the function, if not the nature, of the webs came clear: a man, a human, shambled out from a side corridor of the mosque, with one of the strands firmly affixed to the crown of his head. The hair on Guilhem’s nape rose.

  The man had the look of death about him. He was dressed as any Saracen, in a long robe or tunic down to his ankles, with a white cloth wrapped around his head that also served as a sort of scarf. The webby rope or cable or tube, which was three or four inches thick, was attached to his head as though the turban were not there.

  His eyes were blank, and he appeared to have a skin disease or a rash. His path took him within two or three yards of the alcove in which Oriabel and Guilhem stood, and as he passed Guilhem caught the sickly-sweetish scent of corrupted flesh. Leprosy? he thought.

  “I fear we are in the presence of great evil,” Guilhem whispered.

  Though Oriabel could not see the strange thing attached to the Moor’s head, her eyes went wide at the sight of him. Then a second Saracen straggled through the crowd, his head likewise adorned with a ghostly tube penetrating its crown.

  “Where do those filigrees lead? There are so many—why are they not entangled with one another?”

  “How can I say?” the witch said, clearly annoyed. “They are invisible to me. Did you not see them before we entered?”

  “I did not mark them in the brighter light of day. But come; I want to trace these cables to their source, Oriabel. It must lie somewhere inside this building.”

  “Think you this has something to do with the mystic volume we seek?”

  “I suspect this is the case.”

  A pair of fairies paused just outside the alcove, smiling at them. “Are you not coming to see the great Sh’bnagre?” asked one, a creature whose face was dominated by huge staring eyes and an enormous warty nose.

  “To be sure!” Oriabel replied heartily.

  The big-eyed fairy raked her with a suspicious look. “You two—you look like kobolds but you’re not fey. You...” He sniffed at Guilhem. “Ah, fairy friend! I see.” His improbable face creased in a smile.

  “I am a witch,” Oriabel said. “Come here with my friend to, um, study Sh’bnagre.”

  “Hmph. Disguised or not, you run a risk. The creature will pay no attention to those of us from beyond the fields you know, but it may well discern your humanity under your disguises. As humans, you could well end up under its control, as has happened to the wretches living here. It ever is on the lookout for additional thralls to replace the older ones, you know, for they physically degrade under its influence.”

  Guilhem and Oriabel shared a quick glance. That explained the semi-decayed leprous condition of the humans.

  “Thank you, my friend,” said Guilhem. “We will take care.” The fairies nodded and moved on. Guilhem and Oriabel remained in the shelter of the alcove for a time, observing the passing fey as well as the occasional blank-eyed chattels who stumbled past on unknown errands.

  “These ectoplasmic cables you see,” Oriabel said. “If there is one for every human being under the spell of this Sh’bnagre, then there must be thousands wandering the streets!”

  “Yes,” he said. His mouth had gone dry. “Most of the city must be controlled by it.”

  “How far, I wonder, can the thing’s influence extend?”

  He shook his head. “Probably not beyond the city, otherwise all of Spain—or at least this region of it—would have become a graveyard. You heard that fairy; Sh’bnagre must constantly seek new victims to replace the old ones.”

  “Such beings are acquisitive in nature and jealous of their stolen wealth. It is like the foul tatzelwurm I encountered during our time with the nixies. It will be wary of anyone seeking to plunder the mosque’s vaults. All the fey have come in fascination of its power.”

  “Yes. Let us go see this marvel, too, that we may determine its nature and possibly devise a way of overcoming it.”

  “I agree,” she said, “but we must be careful. If Sh’bnagre penetrates our disguises, it may seek to enslave us whether you are a fairy friend and whether I am a witch, or not.”

  Moments later, the two false kobolds stepped out of the niche and blended into the slow-moving mass of fairies and other magical entities wending their way deeper into the mosque under the undulating mass of jelly-like streamers overhead.

  All the while the sense of foreboding and doom weighing on Guilhem grew stronger. He attributed this to the aura of the monster hidden in the mosque, for the closer they came to its lair the more anxious and uneasy he felt. Though not used to turning away from a challenge, he would gladly have fled with alacrity, had so much not been at stake—and had Oriabel not been there to bear witness to his cowardice.

  Instead he gritted his teeth and kept his head down as he scuffed his clumsy kobold feet along the smooth marble floor. Every so often a human being in thrall to the unseen Sh’bnagre tottered past on unknowable errands.

  “I wonder how in the name of all the devils this thing came to be housed here,” Oriabel murmured. “Usually such monstrosities dwell far beyond our world, toward the center of the universe, shunned by all and plotting to gain a foothold here on Earth.”

  “Think you that the creature has been deliberately summoned by someone? Someone familiar with its ways, and having the means necessary to bring it from its world to ours?”

  “That is precisely my thinking,” she replied. “Should that be true, the person responsible will be the one most likely to know how to send Sh’bnagre back where it came from.”

  Guilhem sucked at his kobold teeth. “Then do we not waste our time confronting the beast? Why not locate this person instead?”

  “Because we do not know who or where he is, only that he is sure to be found somewhere nearby.” She shrugged. “Therefore we must get close to Sh’bnagre ourselves.”

  “I trust your magic will be strong enough to protect us while we are within its sphere of influence.”

  “As do I.”

  They were by now close to a wide staircase leading up to the rearmost chamber of the building. The malefic influence flooding out of this chamber was so powerful that it made Guilhem feel light-headed. He could barely suppress the urge to break and run for the mosque’s entrance. The coils of ectoplasm overhead thickened in substance the nearer they drew to Sh’bnagre’s foul den. Other humans moved back and forth, all bearing tendrils of semi-transparent goo, and all displaying greater or lesser symptoms of Sh’bnagre’s corruptive domination.

  As they slowly moved up the stairs among the press of other-worldly sightseers, Guilhem quailed to see tendrils not connected to human heads, sucker tipped, moving randomly about overhead. Do they seek additional victims?

  He resolved to say nothing about them to Oriabel who, for the first time in his experience showed, if not fear, then apprehension at the least. If the oppressive atmosphere gives her pause, despite what she cannot see, we must indeed be in great danger, he thought, taking care not to become separated from her.

  The crowd converged toward the rear chamber, into which the throbbing overhead tubes converged, and funneled down a staircase too narrow for more than two people to descend at a time. Emanating from the mouth of this staircase was the cold feeling of horror that Guilhem now felt as almost a physical force. Guilhem paused at the head of the stair, moaning slightly. In his entire life, he had never been more afraid. “Come on, what’s the delay?” demanded a gnome behind him. Guilhem swallowed, and took the first step down.

  He later described it as being “like plunging into Hell.” The staircase was a spiral or arabesque of iron. Sturdy enough for typical everyday traffic, it creaked and groaned now from the relentless weight of the pilgrims trundling downward. The stench from the close-packed fairy bodies nearly caused Guilhem to swoon, and he kept hold of his consciousness only b
y pure force of will, perspiration standing out from his brow.

  The lower level of the mosque was comprised primarily of storerooms and other chambers. The crowd continued along a stone corridor to a portal of intricately carved lacework. Beyond this was the source of the oppressive power.

  Within was a vast room filled with the reek of a thousand opened graves. In the air below the ceiling floating strands of ectoplasm twisted and turned like translucent eels. At the far end of the room was a dais, and it was there that the strands all came together. In the midst of them, like a spider in its web, crouched the horror that was Sh’bnagre.

  The observers filed past displaying varying degrees of interest in the monster, exiting beyond it into a foyer or antechamber in which Guilhem glimpsed another winding stairway up which the fairies trooped in an orderly manner.

  Sh’bnagre gave forth a nasty, slobbering sound as it breathed. Its flesh seemed not to be fully solid, but rather shifted in and out of a state somewhere between gaseousness and liquid, while maintaining the thing’s maggot-like shape. Glittering black eyes studded its bulk, seemingly at random.

  Guilhem felt himself consumed by loathing for the foul thing. The contents of his stomach threatened to erupt from his mouth. Without turning to Oriabel, he said, “We must leave before I am ill.”

  She said nothing, merely trembled at his side. He could well understand that, being himself on the verge of uncontrollable shuddering. He grasped her arm and pulled her around, meaning to fight his way through the gathered fey if he had to, in order to escape this nest of filth.

  “Oriabel, move!” He glanced at her. Only then did he see the sucker-tipped tentacle thrust into the top of her head. She stared slack-jawed at him, her eyes blank.

  “Uhhhhh,” she said. “Guhhh.”

  Horror-struck, Guilhem released her. His skin crawled as her eyes cleared and she worked her jaw. “Surrender,” she murmured. “There is no... alternative, Guilhem. The master needs... more slaves.”

  Revolted by the sight of the thing in her head he pulled his sword from its scabbard, meaning to slash at the tentacle and free her, then stayed his hand. Might sundering the thing harm her? Or attract the attention of Sh’bnagre’s controlling mind? Before he could decide what to do she vanished into the crowd.

  None of the other tendrils writhing overhead seemed to be moving in his direction. Perhaps because I am a fairy friend; perhaps the thing doesn’t sense me as fully human. No matter the reason; he knew he had to get out of the mosque before Sh’bnagre or one of its decaying minions penetrated his kobold disguise.

  In a fever of fear, he made his way as quickly as he dared through the departing stream of supernatural onlookers, being careful not to look at the monster on the dais or to give in to his nausea. The climb up the staircase seemed to take hours, but at last he was in the mosque’s main floor, with the crowd around him dispersing and chatting happily.

  Too rattled now to attempt an investigation of the book repository Guilhem walked out of the mosque and sank down to rest on a stone bench across from a fountain splashing in the light of the moon. Now that night had fallen, the plaza was all but deserted save for a few lingering fairies.

  Guilhem scanned the scene without really taking it in. What to do now? It was difficult to think, for the sight of the hideous monster in the mosque had shaken him to his core. After a while, however, the moonlight and quiet plash of water in the old fountain exerted a calming effect on him. He stopped trembling.

  Oriabel had been taken, or captured, or enthralled by the unearthly Sh’bnagre. He clenched his fists. He could not bear the thought of her in subjugation to the disgusting thing. Somehow he must rescue her. He had no idea how that was to be accomplished, but it was a task that needed to be addressed. Address it he would, once he determined how to do so. To do that, he knew, he had to assess his situation in as methodical and dispassionate a way as possible. Like, he told himself, a soldier. Which is what you are. Now act like one. He drew a deep breath.

  The first point of consideration was that he was currently locked inside the guise of a kobold. However, if one had to be trapped inside a form not one’s own, he thought, there were far worse ones than this. He did not know the spell that would return him to human shape, but the parrot, Rámon, waiting back in their lodgings, did; Guilhem could either beg the bird’s indulgence, or remain a kobold for the time being. It could be advantageous for Guilhem to retain the disguise if he meant to reenter the mosque to free Oriabel and search for the book. But before he attempted anything along those lines he wanted to confer with the bird, who might have other, potentially useful, ideas that could help Guilhem win Oriabel’s freedom.

  Guilhem rose to his feet. It should be relatively easy for him to gain entry to the Silver Moon. If they wouldn’t admit what they took to be a kobold, he would simply climb up the wall to his room. He had taken no more than a single step in the direction of the inn when he heard a commotion in the plaza near the mosque’s entry.

  A man had wandered out. His robes marked him as a Saracen, but he was otherwise in very bad physical condition. His nose was entirely eaten away, and great sores marked his long, bearded face. He was, as far as Guilhem could tell, a thrall in the final stages of decomposition.

  He started: the man bore no controlling tentacle fastened to his turbaned head! He was free of malign influence. Guilhem was on his feet and at the man’s side almost before he realized what he was doing.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  IN WHICH GUILHEM FACES ELDRITCH HORROR

  “Let me help you,” Guilhem said, assisting the frail Saracen to a seat on another bench. “I see that you have been released by Sh’bnagre. How so?”

  The old man passed a trembling hand across his forehead. “Yes... I have been rejected by the Great One.” With each passing moment, his voice took on strength. “I am Mohammed al-Yngvi, and by the grace of Allah I was once the head librarian of this mosque. Now... I am polluted by sickness and, God willing, will soon die.”

  “I did not think the beast was known to release anyone from its influence,” Guilhem said.

  “No... it does not; unless, like me, they are too debilitated by the effects of its subjugation. I have been in its power longest of all other inhabitants of this doomed city. I regret to say that I am the person responsible for its presence here.”

  “What? You?”

  Al-Yngvi nodded sadly. “Yes, may Allah have mercy on me! I have committed grievous sins in order to facilitate the Great One’s empowerment. I was seduced and led astray by its promises.”

  “I have not heard that a demon’s promises are worth anything... except to the demon,” said Guilhem.

  “Alas, you are too right. Would you care to hear my story?”

  “Certes, if it will help me fight the creature.”

  “I cannot promise such, of course.” Here al-Yngvi sighed heavily. “But imshallah, may it be so. I have labored here under the imam for twenty years. He was a most pious man, was Ibrahim ibn Zayed; perhaps overly so, because in his zeal he went forth to confiscate all forbidden books of magic and heretical studies, of which there are many, some of them brought here by infidels such as yourself, if you will excuse my saying so. Our people had been using them to gain secular power, rather than follow the words of the Prophet. And so, as I say, ibn Zayed took them and kept them secure under lock and key, here—in my care, for I was ever a trusted acolyte.” Here he sighed again. “But the books have evil power and I fell under their sway. I sought influence for myself, you see; in my envy I wished to become more powerful than my master, Ibrahim ibn Zayed. And therefore did I delve into the most forbidden book of all, and with what I learned therein did I summon Sh’bnagre.”

  “I take it that things did not go well,” said Guilhem.

  “You are correct, my friend. The demon was too subtle and cunning for me. Indeed did I replace ibn Zayed with its help, but its own greed and avarice far outstripped mine, for it desired control of the entire wor
ld. And you can see the result. The city has all but fallen to it, and I have nearly reached the end of my days on earth.” He moaned in anguish. “Sh’bnagre has used me and cast me aside, yet would I gladly return to its service.”

  “What? Why would you desire such a thing?”

  The man turned his eyes toward Guilhem, and the duke shuddered at the mad light he saw therein. “You do not know what I have seen,” al-Yngvi whispered, clutching at Guilhem’s shoulder. “My eyes have been opened by Sh’bnagre to the wider glories of the universe. I have seen to the very Center of All! I have observed much else, things wonderful and things terrible. I can penetrate the essence of any person now. I see, for example, that despite your appearance as a kobold, you are in fact a hale and hearty man of thirty, Duke Guilhem IX of the Aquitaine.”

  Shuddering, Guilhem shook off the imam’s claw-like hand. Without bothering to deny the accusation, he said “Indeed you see much, Mohammed al-Yngvi, but can you see what you have done to your people and your city? Unless the monster is vanquished, all will be destroyed, all will perish.”

  Al-Yngvi cackled. “Elsewhere there are many other people to serve him! His range is limited now, but with each new slave Great Sh’bnagre becomes wiser, more cunning, for it partakes of the knowledge hidden within the slave’s brain. Its range will slowly increase until it controls all of Spain. Other kingdoms will fall, and soon enough Sh’bnagre will rule the entire Earth!”

  Guilhem narrowed his eyes. “Yet the fey pay homage to it... will it not overwhelm their realms as well?”

  “To be sure, to be sure!” Al-Yngvi rubbed his hands together in glee. “Those foolish creatures do not understand the depth of its ambition and avarice. They propitiate it, thinking that by fawning over it, and making obeisance it will regard them more kindly.” He chuckled. “I find it all most amusing.” By this time, al-Yngvi was dribbling into his beard. Guilhem pulled back, but the madman gripped his clothing again. “You will help me!”

  “I will do no such thing.” Guilhem stood, meaning to leave the deranged cleric, but al-Yngvi raised his hands and gestured at him, spouting a long string of syllables in a tongue Guilhem had never heard.