Dee looked over his shoulder. ‘I, ah, should not put it quite so freely,’ he muttered. ‘Even in this somewhat out-of-the-way place. The intelligencers of the court …’
‘Oh, great. Hey, you haven’t told her she’s going to meet any tall, dark strangers, have you?’
The old boy looked uncomfortable. ‘Well – ahem! – as chance and the stellar motions would have it—’
Kelley chuckled. ‘So? She did encounter my lord Dudley’s nephew, the young Earl of Essex—’
‘Oh, him. Watch him. He ends up getting played by Errol Flynn.’
‘Gracious mercy!’ The old boy looked very alarmed for a moment, then confused, then he cheered up. ‘Ah well, no matter for the moment, for I am out of her service awhile. Among other concerns, in the quest for you, young sir; and glory be to Heaven above that we found you!’
‘Yeah. I almost fainted with delight.’
The man Kelley chuckled again. ‘Sir, sir, ’twas not to be helped! We had to get word to you somehow, and it’s taken us these five long years since our previous, ah, encounter!’
I blinked. ‘Five? Hold on a minute, that was only the night before last!’
Kelley grinned and winked. ‘Ah, sir, but that’s the way of this strange shadow realm. A night and a night for you; for us, a fistful of years!’
I sat back and stared. Five hundred years or five, they didn’t belong in the same time as I did. Or did they? They had accents, they spoke pretty oddly. I’d had trouble understanding them at first, but now I seemed to be getting attuned or something. That was peculiar enough; and yet I believed them, as much as I believed anything in this weird place. This far, anyhow.
‘So how the hell did you find me? Private eyes?’
Dee looked puzzled. ‘Eyes? Are they that infernal picture device of your era? No, sir; we cultivated the rare and refined art of scrying. Which, if you have not heard of it, is divination by looking-glass. Although metal or stone polished may also be used, or even the surface of still water, so that it turn an image. Philosophically – that is, hermetically – all such images may be considered identical, or to be more precise universal, so that one has but to attune one’s thoughts to—’
Kelley coughed, and the old boy smiled. ‘Well, well, it is an art too complex to explain this hour, and besides brother Edward is a greater adept than I.’ He patted Kelley’s shoulder. ‘An art I sinfully envy him! For in all our first researches I saw naught but my own foolish image, whereas very soon he fell entranced and held converse with spirits of light, and looked upon untold wonders, such as I could scarcely credit!’
He wagged his head in innocent wonder, and I looked at Kelley with more interest. He had the kind of bluff, genial manner and rugged, open, rather boyish face that sets all my warning bells jangling.
‘Ach, that’s nothing!’ he laughed modestly. ‘A gift, not any doing of mine. And in truth it was of little use then for everyday concerns.’
‘Truth!’ chuckled Dee. ‘For that we had to pursue our researches further, into these strange borderlands of the everyday world, Wheel or Spiral or whatever the pagans here call them. We chanced upon them first by noting that there were places where our experiments seemed always to fare better, where there seemed to be founts of power we could draw upon. So by searching out where the power was strongest, to which end I made a simple device, we pressed further and further across the divide. That was what took us to this little-frequented region of the Welsh Marches in the first place—’
Welsh Marches? We were nowhere near Wales here. But did Dee realise that? It dawned on me that he might not be as clued-up as he seemed about this Spiral business – which would explain some of the cock-ups, anyhow.
‘And thence to somewhere better!’ said Kelley enthusiastically. ‘Better by far! The breadth of Europe we searched out that power, till we found ourselves a place of truly surpassing potential. And one where we may pursue our researches in peace, untroubled by the persecutions of the churches and the ignorant men who stream into them! A place where natural philosophers have an enlightened patron, merciful and generous to those he protects. That we found! And there we pressed our studies to the hilt!’
Dee wagged his beard. ‘Aye! Of a glorious sudden, I, I too could discern visions in the glass – although of this world only,’ he added a little sadly.
Kelley rubbed his hands. ‘Well, there we perfected and refined our rites, beyond those first stumbling essays. There’ll be no stumbling this time, I warrant you! And thence we have traced and explored along—’
For a moment they both looked almost embarrassed.
‘—along paths mystical and strange. And found that we could pass thus between the interstices of time and space, to wander at will between worlds and ages! In this fashion we have traced you and come to you this very day – and where from, think you?’
He looked at me triumphantly. I shrugged.
‘From Bohemia! From the depths of Europe, in a few short hours, by secret ways beneath the earth you could not conceive of!’
So much for travel broadening the mind. I wondered what he’d make of the Channel Tunnel.
‘OK, so now you’re here,’ I said, determinedly unimpressed. ‘Mind telling me just what it is you came for? Apart from scaring me half to death, that is?’
Kelley seized my arm and stared earnestly into my face. ‘Why, to liberate you, of course! To bear you back thither, and there to lift from you this burden that has fallen to you by ill chance. And to draw blessings from it for all mankind!’ He sat back. ‘As ’twas we who laid it upon you, though all unwitting, ’tis we who can most safely lift it once again. Is that not so, brother?’
Dee nodded soberly. ‘That is so, brother.’
‘Well, bully for you!’ I said, still playing it very cool. The more they talk about favours, the closer you read the small print. ‘Let’s get one thing straight, though – before I let you or anyone else lead me up any mystic paths, I’ll want to know what’s at the end of them! So, spill it – what’re you up to? What’s all this about?’
Dee looked concerned. ‘But have you not already understood? That is why you came here, was it not? To seek some friend’s counsel? Have you not had … shall we say, curious experiences? Encounters that are past your power to explain?’
‘Apart from you, you mean? Too bloody right I have. Enough to keep me in nightmares for the rest of my life!’
‘Nightmares?’ Kelley opened his mouth to say something, but Dee ploughed on regardless. ‘Surely not so severe! We imagined you confused and daunted, perhaps, by what was so suddenly thrust upon you. The seeing of visions – the conferring of powers you could scarce control – even, maybe, the coming of strange and mighty visitants. Is this not so?’
That rocked me back a bit. ‘Well, yes,’ I admitted, ‘That was it, all right. Only the visions – the visitants – they really were bloody nightmarish!’
Kelley wasn’t laughing now. ‘Surely that was only the – shock? The suddenness?’
‘No it frigging was not! Not just, anyhow.’
He sounded concerned. ‘But did they … threaten you in any way?’
‘Yes – no! Maybe – no! Christ, I don’t know what to think!’
The old man nodded. ‘When you tell of a nightmare, it loses its power to frighten, does it not? Primo, my young sir, we must hear clearly what has been happening to you. Secundo, we may then tell you how we plan to relieve you of it – and to reward you as best we can. Young sir, will you not relent, and place some trust in us?’
He sounded sincere; but then I had a nice line in that myself once. Still, I was just bursting to tell somebody about all this – somebody who’d credit it, anyhow. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll spill the lot.’
It didn’t take long in the telling, but they nodded and hummed as sagely as if I were some distinguished lecturer, only chipping in when I left any detail out. Intelligent questions, too – about the wind that night, the individual bandits, that kind of t
hing. I had to admit they were an impressive pair, Dee a little woolly but obviously full of knowledge, Kelley sharp and practical. I know brains when I see them, but there was more than that here. You could imagine you were dealing with a theoretical physicist and the engineer who puts his projects into practice. That made things a little uncomfortable for me. I couldn’t entirely cover up just what I was and what I’d been doing, no matter how many naked truths I tried to dress up.
Or give them a nattier G-string, anyhow.
Dee shook his head sympathetically and tut-tutted, but I could see him getting sniffier and more high-minded. Kelley just chuckled good-humouredly. When I finally ground to a halt, though, he glanced at Dee with obvious deference.
The old man sighed, and plucked at the corner of his dark garment, gown or whatever it was. ‘Well, young sir, I do indeed regret what you have suffered. Again I offer you our apology. Yet more of this trouble has been of your own making than even I suspected. Indeed, you may in a sense be the author of it!’
‘The author? You mean I dreamed it up? Listen, you crap-headed old hearthrug—’
‘Be calm, sir, please!’ Dee rapped his stick on the ground. He had more command than I’d have expected. ‘I have heard you out! Will you not hear me?’
I subsided, and he nodded. ‘Good! I do not seek to mock you. That these … encounters happened, I do most firmly believe. Yet I believe also that the understandable terror they inspired has caused you to … to paint some aspects in hues darker and more, hmmn, demonic than they merit. Think!’ he said, as I opened my mouth to shout. ‘Think again of what has truly happened to you, each time! Why, you have received help, have you not? And in answer to even your lightest thought! You were saved. You were most mightily succoured!’
I was tempted to ask if I still was being suckered, but he wouldn’t have got it. ‘Well, maybe – but Christ, if that’s being saved it’s nearly as bad as getting caught! Anyhow, it probably wasn’t just for me – I mean, who’d bother—’
Dee raised his brows. ‘Have you not heard, perhaps, of guardian angels?’
I stared. Then I laughed, dislodging the last scraps of sausage. ‘Angels? Come off it, doc. If those bozos off that boat came from heaven, I don’t want to know, right?’
‘But I do, Master Maxie,’ said Dee, and sat back calmly against the settle. ‘I do.’
He smoothed his beard thoughtfully. ‘All my long life I have sought and dispensed knowledge, and still sought more. The labour I have spent would have profited me far more in other occupations. Why, ask you? Because I would find some way to breach the boundaries of our mundane world. Some straighter path to the fountainhead of creation, through which the ills of mankind could be overcome and all men live as brothers.’
The same old dream. Only maybe it didn’t seem so daft five hundred years back, who knows? Not me. I’ve always thought the citizen who first said all men are brothers was probably Cain.
Dee was looking out into infinite distances. ‘To this end I have delved into every branching of art and philosophy. In the deepest mathematical arts I have found some promise that such a thing might be, and in the writings of such illustrious astrologers as Master Tycho of Denmark. Yet it was only when I looked beyond them, to such savants of bygone years as Masters Ramon Lull and Pico della Mirandola, and beyond them the great Henricus Agrippa and his master Trithemius Abbatus de Spondheim – only then did I begin to see the gateway. But opening it – ah, that had to wait until the coming of my young friend Master Kelley. I said, did I not, that he has from the beginning held converse with other realms?’
No wonder Kelley’s face seemed familiar. He’d have made a brilliant double-glazing salesman. Or a pyramid seller. He was smiling modestly now, leaving the talking to Dee.
‘You’re telling me … he really talks to angels?’
‘Indeed!’ The old boy genuinely was sincere, his corkscrew beard wagging up and down with the force of his words.
I blinked. ‘Wow. What’d you talk about? The weather? Harp lessons?’
He frowned. ‘Best you take such matters less lightly, young sir. You’ll needs learn more of them ere we’re done. We have had some success. Messages have been received, and guidance. We have been told how to better our lives, that we may deserve such a privilege.’ He wagged his head. ‘Often in most unexpected ways. Why, would you credit—’
Kelley raised a mildly protesting hand. ‘Leave all these deep matters for later. Let it suffice that we undertook a project of awesome moment!’
‘’Tis so!’ said Dee eagerly, tugging at his beard again. ‘To summon, by means of a difficult rite, a great angel into our presence! And to establish what might be termed an especial link or sympathy, by which we might call upon some fragment of his awesome powers.’
My hair began to crawl. ‘Wait a minute … I get it. So you were trying to buy into a franchise? With one of you as local agent or whatever?’
He nodded amiably. ‘I had dared to dream that I might have that honour. To wield so amazing a force for good, a wondrous fount of healing for the world!’ His eyes brimmed with austere joy. ‘But evidently the angels willed that it should fall to another …’
Kelley’s smile was firmer. ‘Should first fall to another,’ he remarked.
‘Oh. So you were holding one of your … rituals or whatever it was when I, well, dropped in?’
‘Not just one ritual,’ said Kelley quietly. ‘The ritual. Dangerous as blackest night, and as impenetrable. It demands the effort of Sisyphus, rolling a boulder up a steep mountain. It may bend minds until their cracking point, like willow twigs. It was progressing as never before. And into the midst of it – you fell.’
‘I was scared, that was all! I was looking for somewhere to hide! There was something loose in the fields around there, something that scared the—’
‘God willed it,’ said Dee, not that humbly. He looked as if he’d picked up the news at some heavenly cocktail hour. Tor his great purposes, no doubt. So by your unlooked-for incursion, the vessel and source for the overflowing might of the angels—’ He sighed. ‘Is your doubtless worthy but wholly unprepared self.’
He said unprepar-ed, Biblical fashion. Somehow that brought it all home.
I wanted to run around the room and gibber. Angels? Believing in things has never been exactly my strong point. Let’s face it, even in my short life I’ve sold too many lines to too many citizens. The magistrate who believed I was caught headfirst through a car window because I wanted to see the time on the clock. The passers-by I pulled in on behalf of a cult to have their subconscious tweaked, at so much per superego. The stripshow punters I promised the ultimate erotic experience. The believers I helped to hoodwink for my spoon-bending psychic. The more they believed, the less I did. And angels – well, you could say they were fairly high up my list.
Devils, now, they were another matter; I mean, you only had to look at the regular crowd down at the Port Mahon any evening. They made anything up to and including the First Circle seem inevitable. But angels never came in. Not even to the saloon bar.
Yet the man Steve had said all things were possible out here. Now I was beginning to get just how much he might have meant. ‘What I’ve seen didn’t look that angelic,’ I said slowly.
‘Aye,’ muttered Dee, disturbed again, ‘and I confess that I do not wholly comprehend that. The character of these … brigands, these visitants …’
‘Ah now, and is not that clear as daylight and champagne?’ demanded Kelley. ‘Should not the human agent focus the angelic light, as ’twere a burning glass? And lend it his own colour, like a window of stained leads? Is that not his purpose, to determine what form it shall take?’
‘Ah!’ cried Dee, and stamped his cane on the floor again. ‘Well reasoned, brother! That must be it indeed! Primo, the angelic aid appeared in somewhat irregular form, young sir, because it was not ab initio intended for you. Secundo, because you were neither expecting it, nor apt to control it. A horse is a gallant aid a
nd grace, but not if you lack bridle and rein, or indeed the very art of riding. Tertio, because you were, let it be said …’
‘Buggering about on dirty business!’ grinned Kelley, in a way I somehow minded a lot less than Dee’s embarrassed squirming.
‘Ah’m, let us be charitable and say … somewhat far removed from a state of grace.’ Anything rather than admit you were chatting with a self-confessed felon, let alone sitting at the same table.
I thumped a fist on the table. ‘Now wait just a bloody moment here,’ I spat, feeling the whole rigmarole of reasoning leaping about in my aching head like a rat in a coffee can. ‘Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that I got all these nightmare goons instead of the robe-and-halo brigade because I wasn’t thinking beautiful thoughts?’
‘Because you were not about beautiful deeds!’ exclaimed Dee. ‘Can you not comprehend that? May not angels seem like devils if seen with distorted sight? A spirited horse may seem fair to one who can command it, frightening to another who cannot.’
‘Well, maybe,’ I protested. ‘But you two were ready enough to go for it, weren’t you?’
‘Ready, aye – but with fear and trembling. To be the rightful vessel of such awesome power requires long discipline and self-purification, such as the art of magia already requires. Anyone not so equipped would surely find it a terror indeed – still more, it seems, one who cannot control his evil thoughts. I say not that you are so great a sinner,’ he added hastily, tugging at his corkscrewed beard. ‘A youth wild and untutored, no doubt. But nevertheless—’
‘The power comes to you, lad, as you require it,’ said Kelley, more kindly. ‘But you’re the wrong fellow, with the wrong purposes, and so it comes in wrong forms. It does you good, but by the most frightening means! And as long as you go on like this, you’ll be but a blind beggar upon a runaway horse!’
I wondered. It made a nasty kind of sense. There was the pure light or whatever blazing out, and me in the way, as a sort of crap-coloured filter. That was Maxie all over.
Maxie’s Demon Page 11
