Tersias the Oracle

by G. P. Taylor

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  I - TETRAGRAMMATON

  II - BLACK MARY’S WELL

  III - THE BULL AND MOUTH

  IV - THE PROPHET

  V - THIEVING LANE

  VI - THE LOGICAL MISTER SKULLET

  VII - SKANDALON

  VIII - POCULUM CARITATIS

  IX - MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO

  X - LEX TALIONIS

  XI - TRISMAGISTUS

  XII - FECKWIT

  XIII - THE GIAOUR

  XIV - SONS OF PRATTLEMENT

  XV - TABULA RASA

  XVI - FOSCARI

  XVII - STABAT MATER

  XVIII - THE COURT OF THE NEW MOON

  XIX - AGAPEMONE

  XX - THE SIGN OF TIRONIAN

  XXI - THE GREAT REMONSTRANCE

  XXII - THE OPPROBRIUM

  XXIII - THE QUOTIDIAN OF DRURY LANE

  XXIV - WASTREL

  XXV - THE ELEPHANT AND THE ELM

  XXVI - GALLOGLASS IN GALLIGASKINS

  XXVII - VERITAS

  QUESTIONING THE ORACLE

  “There has been a scourge of robberies in this area. I myself was victim of a foul fiend who took from me something very precious, and it is for this that I have called you here tonight. If you answer me successfully, I can make you a rich man.”

  Skullet snuffed out candle after candle. With a steady hand, Malachi cajoled Tersias into the centre of the rug and faced him towards the large chair that Malpas had sunk into. The firelight reflected off the boy’s face and lit his empty white eyes with a bloom of deep red light that seemed to surge from his soul.

  “Now, my Tersias . . .” Malpas spoke softly to him. “I need an answer to my question.”

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  First published in Great Britain by Faber and Faber Limited, London, 2005 First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2006 Published by Firebird, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2007

  Copyright © G. P. Taylor, 2005

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS EDITION AS FOLLOWS: Taylor, G. P. Tersias the oracle / G. P. Taylor—1st American ed.

  p. cm. Summary: Jonah, a young thief, and his friends and Tersias, a twelve-year-old boy who channels prophecies, become embroiled in the machinations of a magician, a politician, and a false prophet, as well as in the magic of a strange alabaster box.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-11830-6

  [1. Occult—Fiction. 2. Spirit possession—Fiction.] 1. Title.

  PZ7.T2134Ter 2006 [Fic]—dc22 2005014347

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To the Cloughton Family Robinson for all your love and kindness to us all

  I

  TETRAGRAMMATON

  Magnus Malachi paced the dirt floor of the old stable, then walked slowly to the open door and peered warily around its edge, deep into the night sky. He leant on a long staff, stroking its whalebone handle with his thin, grubby fingers.

  “It still comes, Tersias, the star is still upon us,” he said as he gazed at the approaching comet. “Now, astound me with your predictions. Will the comet be repelled before it destroys the world and my little piece of the kingdom?” Malachi laughed as he turned and looked across the dark stable to the small boy who sat quietly behind the bars of his cage.

  “I was right to buy you, the best guinea I have ever spent,” he muttered as he stalked about. “ ‘Who would pay that for a blind beggar?’ they said. ‘The man must be a fool,’ they said. Now who’s the fool?” he began to shout. “I have me a prophet boy, an oracle beyond oracles. Ask him a question an’ he tells no lies . . . the secrets of the universe are lodged between his ears, and all for a guinea piece.”

  Tersias sat on a small wooden three-legged stool next to his tattered bed. Holding on to the thick metal bars that made up the walls and roof of his painted gold cage, he peered out through his blind eyes into a black world. He knew Malachi was nearby—he could smell the heavy scent of myrrh that was pressed into Malachi’s long beard to make it glisten. He could hear the rubbing of his boots against the hard ground and the dragging of Malachi’s foot as he clumsily paced up and down.

  Tersias had endured twelve winters, and for the last month he had been locked in this cage with only enough room to walk five blind strides. He had grown frailer with each day, and his once fitted jacket hung like a ragged cotton sack across his hunched shoulders.

  “So what do you say, boy? Will my charm work, will it stop the heavens crashing to the earth?”

  “I cannot lie to you,” the boy said slowly, rubbing his soft white thumb against the bar of his prison. “Your spell is useless; there is no one to hear your mumblings. But the comet will not destroy the city.”

  “Mumblings?” growled Malachi in reply as he lashed out with his staff, smashing it against the side of the cage. “I don’t mumble. . . . This is an art, a profession of the highest degree. It isn’t a mumble—mumbles are for fat old hags that charge a penny for a wart cure. I paid seven guineas for these grimoires, they have curses that were spoken by the ancients. . . . You say the comet will not strike the earth but my charm has no effect. How can it be?”

  “You asked me the future and I know what is whispered to me, but how or why are not of my understanding,” Tersias said quietly.

  Malachi stormed about the stable, throwing logs onto the fire. They crashed into the flames, sending bright red sparks up the chimney and scattering hot coals in the hearth. “Then I will chant it again and cast the spell once more,” he declared. He reached into the large, tatty leather bag that hung from his shoulder on a long strap. He rummaged deep inside, feeling into the corners, his hand quickly searching amongst bones and claws, string and hair.

  “Got you!” he screamed merrily as he pulled out a long, thin dried finger that had been severed at the fattest knuckle. “I will make the charm with this, Tersias,” he said, and he scurried to the large table that stood like an alchemist’s altar by the far wall. He dipped the tip of the finger into the candle flame until the fire charred it deep black, then, taking a large pewter plate, he scratched a circle into its centre.

  “Severed finger, drownèd man . . . Catch the Hekat if you can . . . Come hither, spirits, from near and far . . . Work my desire, destroy the star . . .” He hopped and pointed the smouldering digit from earth to sky as he danced clumsily ar
ound the room, casting the spell.

  Tersias sat quietly, picking the loose thread from the sleeve of his coat and singing softly to himself. He could barely remember life before his kidnapping, a time when he could see reality and not just the faces of the secret visitors who arrived unannounced and invisible to the world, whispering the future to him. They would come most often when he was falling to sleep and murmur his name. In his mind he could see them—vague, drawn faces that seldom smiled. Bitter, caustic voices that rasped against the ears in words. Now they would come on command: as soon as a question was asked, they would whisper their reply and he would give it as if it came from his own lips.

  “Best he be blind . . .” The words echoed through his mind over and over again, spoken by his stepmother before he was taken away. “Earn more money, blind boy—blind man, better for sympathy when begging be done.”

  They were the only words that he could remember. His memory allowed him to see his stepmother’s face before the blast of white burning light gouged his sight and plunged him into darkness and the shadow land he had walked since that childhood day.

  It was when strange hands pulled the cloth roughly from his skin that he knew he was blind and alone, stolen from his home.

  He recalled rough hands and harsh words from a stranger who gave neither love nor name and tied him to the begging post in Covent Garden. Long hours of beating rain and biting cold had stripped tender flesh almost to the bone as he held out his hands for the grace of passing strangers.

  His sightless, scarred face had brought the pity of the hardest heart. He was a favourite of the locals, who passed him pleasantries and half-eaten sops of bread. Then, as the last lamps were snuffed out, Rough-hands would return and take him back to the garret, dragging him through the damp streets, up two flights of narrow stairs and into the high loft, taking from him the begging bag and silently counting the money penny by penny.

  Then one night, when Rough-hands slept, the creature came for the first time. As Tersias huddled into the shabby blanket, he could sense that something hovered over him, filling the room with its foul stench. Tersias squeezed himself into a tight knot, hoping to become so small that he would not be seen. He pulled his knees to his chest and covered his blind eyes for fear that they would somehow see what was before him.

  A dark voice beside him quietly spoke. “I am the Wretchkin. When you dance with me, it’s always to my tune.” He felt a velvet hand stroke his face. “Creatures of power always need their little pixies and dryads to do their bidding, and you can be my dryad. In return I will give you a perfect gift that will astound the world and make you great.”

  In a brief moment a sharp spike seemed to rip through his face, throwing back his head and twisting his neck as he was thrust against the damp plaster and pressed to the floor by an unseen power that rushed through his mouth and swirled in his head. Then, suddenly, the presence was gone and the room echoed again to the snoring of Rough-hands, propped in a chair by the dampening fire.

  It was then that the voice of the Wretchkin first entered his mind. At first Tersias thought the room was filled with people laughing and teasing him. He answered the mocking and was quickly told to be silent by Rough-hands speaking in his sleep.

  The voices continued to whisper news of tomorrow, great events, pageants and hangings. They filled his mind, echoed in each sinew. Sometimes the voices of the Wretchkin would talk together, bringing rumours from far-off places for him to overhear.

  The next night he spoke back to the Wretchkin. At first, he thought it couldn’t hear him, but as the image of its face grew in his mind, he spoke boldly. From then on it would come like attending angels proclaiming the future.

  “Don’t tell them who speaks to you, Tersias,” the Wretchkin called as it left him alone as the dawn broke. “They’ll think you’re mad.” They laughed.

  In the days to come, Tersias was sold on from Rough-hands to a Limehouse noose-maker, then lost as a wager in a game of cards. He was left by London Bridge, forgotten by his drunken master, and finally fell for a guinea into the hands of Magnus Malachi, dealer in treatments and caster of curses. The Wretchkin followed him to the stable, where he was locked in a caged manger. It was always ready to speak, always near.

  It was by an irresistible compulsion that Tersias unwittingly uttered his first oracle. Malachi had been bent over his pot, scrying the dark waters for a foresight of the future. He had muttered his oath and his questioning was overheard by the Wretchkin. They whispered the answer to Tersias, who could not contain his voice and shouted out Malachi’s desire and what fate would befall him. It was then that Malachi double-locked the cage and kept Tersias from begging in the street.

  There had followed countless questions and exhortations that had tested the Wretchkin in its devotion to Tersias. Each time Malachi asked, it answered, uttering through the lips of the youth the precise reply that Malachi wanted to hear. In the four long weeks of his confinement, Tersias had spoken the words of these creatures many times.

  Malachi had leapt with joy as his newfound prophet surpassed his wild dreaming. Tersias had spoken of the coming comet time and again as it had secretly approached through space. Malachi had stomped his whalebone staff unbelievingly into the ground and called him a liar. Then all suddenly changed when he found the tattered pages of the London Chronicle and read for himself of the great discovery. Tersias could feel the rising convulsions of awe and panic that overflowed from Malachi, making him virtually speechless.

  Now the comet was here, stretching from one side of the dark night sky to the other. The spectacle had come and London was deserted. Even the rats had fled the houses after the first bombardment of sky-ice that had cracked the atmosphere and burnt its way into the earth’s crust. Tersias and Malachi were the only ones to still inhabit the stable yard that clung to the back wall of the Cross Keys Inn to the north of Cheapside. Every lodging lout, guttersnipe and vagabond had abandoned the city; all that could be heard was the cry of dogs and the rustling autumn leaves.

  Malachi fixed his eyes on the approaching star. The comet grew brighter in the eastern sky as it plunged nearer to the earth behind the moon. From the east a howling wind lifted the water from the river as the comet arched towards the moon, its orbit pulled towards the lesser light. The whole earth shuddered as the comet smashed into the moon’s dark side, sending plumes of lunar dust high into space. It fractured in the surface of the moon and exploded towards the earth in a million fragments of ice that twisted and spun as they crossed the sky.

  “I did it,” Malachi shouted, dancing from the doorway to the cage and peering in at his little prisoner. “My dear sooth-tooth, you were right, the comet has crashed into the moon and will not strike the earth, and my alchemy prevailed.” He reached in through the bars of the cage and took hold of Tersias by the chin, nipping the flesh until the boy squealed.

  Tersias could smell the scent of burning sulphur and fried onion that laced Malachi’s fingers in thick grease and made his eyes water.

  “My little boy cries for Uncle Malachi,” his master teased. “See how his splendid tears fall from his blind eye—what a testimony of love!” His voice wailed like a sea siren. “I will buy you a golden cage—for your protection, of course. When the city is rebuilt, we will go to Tyburn and you can prophesy at the hangings for a shilling a time. We will be rich, and you—you can have a blanket, washed every week,” he exclaimed excitedly, his voice rising higher and higher.

  “I will not speak,” Tersias said, backing away from Malachi. “I am not a creature from some menagerie.”

  Malachi walked quietly to the other side of the cage. “Why is that, Tersias? Do you not want to please me? I have given you warmth and food and shelter, have I not? Is this how you repay your friend Malachi?”

  “Have I not paid off the guinea you gave for me?” Tersias asked as he fumbled around the cage. “I have begged for you and told you the future, what more do you want?”

  “Who would care for
you, Tersias? I am your eyes in a world of darkness, your ears in a world so deaf that it cannot hear the truth. The debt to me is greater than a guinea—I bought a life, not a lease, on this the law is clear. You are my apprentice until you are twenty-one, and then you will be free.”

  “What if I refuse, what will you do then?” Tersias could hear Malachi walking near the fireplace, dragging his cumbersome leg stiffly behind him. And then he heard the sound of metal being thrust into the fire, slithering across the stone hearth and poking deep into the ashes.

  Silence was a fearful thing to Tersias. He strained his ears to listen for what Malachi was doing, but all he could hear was the deep rise and fall of his own laboured breathing.

  “What does he do?” Tersias cried fearfully under his breath to the Wretchkin.

  “He brings a fire-stick glowing hot, burning as bright as the hatred in his eyes,” said the voice in his head that echoed through him. As the creature spoke, Tersias was overwhelmed by a deep sickness that twisted his gut. The smell of the Wretchkin filled his nostrils and bubbled in his throat.

  Tersias suddenly began to distinguish the dark image of Magnus Malachi, pressed upon his mind by the Wretchkin. He gave a gasp of complete surprise as he could clearly see him for the first time, his long coat sweeping over the dirt floor. Malachi was much taller than he had thought, thinner and drawn in the face, his goatee beard long and black with sticky buds of myrrh glowing in the light of lamp and fire. Tersias could make out that the Wretchkin was behind him, out of the cage, watching Malachi from over his shoulder. It was as if they were joined in thought and whatever the creature saw was pulsed into Tersias’s mind for him to see.

  The creature’s stare was fixed on the fire-rod that Malachi carried in his hand. It glowed with a white-hot tip that sparked and oozed a thin and constant wisp of blue smoke. Tersias could see the hand that gripped the poker, each finger tipped with a thick black nail that clawed out of a long, stained finger.