by Zen Cho
Sir Stephen frowned, standing before the fire with his hands clasped behind his back, rocking on his feet as he thought.
Zacharias experienced an unlooked-for pang. The sight was so familiar, the scene so much like what it had been when Sir Stephen was still alive, that for a moment Zacharias could not credit that the world was so utterly changed. In some respects their relationship was easier, their respective positions more equal. Yet Zacharias must always regret the shift that had so transformed the footing on which they each stood.
“You have not informed the Society of the block on our magic?” said Sir Stephen.
“I had almost done so,” said Zacharias, “but I fear the intelligence that Mak Genggang’s vampiresses have been conspiring against Britain is likely to incite another attack on Janda Baik. The situation there is so delicate that anything of the sort must be avoided. We cannot afford to be entangled in a magical conflict—we have not the resource for it, and there is our treaty with the French to consider.”
“I tell you what, Zacharias,” announced Sir Stephen. “What you need is evidence of Geoffrey Midsomer’s wrongdoing—solid evidence, such as even that miserable old Committee could not deny. Who better to supply you with such evidence than me? There is nowhere I cannot go, nothing I cannot see—”
“Nothing you can touch or move,” Zacharias reminded him. “I am obliged to you for your offer, sir, but Damerell and Rollo are already at work investigating Midsomer.”
Sir Stephen waved away both Damerell and Rollo, and the minor matter of his incorporeality. “Paget Damerell is a good enough fellow, but he is not likely to get very far with that addlepated creature to help him. No, it is a task for me, and I shall contrive some way around the inconvenience of my being unfleshed. At worst, Zacharias, we shall have to engage in a spot of necromancy, and I shall appear to give evidence to the Committee in person. It is what I could not wish, of course—Maria would so dislike it—so we must regard it as a last resort. Yet I should very much enjoy the looks on their faces!”
Zacharias did not continue to argue. If Sir Stephen could discover some means of overcoming his inability to interact with the material world, he would be the ideal investigator. It remained only to thank him, but Sir Stephen scoffed.
“There will be time enough for thanks when I have found something! Though even then I would only be making amends for the wretched legacy I have left you,” he said. “Do you know, I fancy I shall enjoy myself. I was never a man to hold a grudge, but if it is put in my way to serve Julian Midsomer out for the trouble he has given me and mine, why! I am not an angel yet!”
And Sir Stephen’s blue eyes glinted with a most uncelestial light.
21
PRUNELLA WAS INDIGNANT to be roused early the next morning for her lesson.
“Surely you have better things to concern yourself with than my instruction,” she protested.
The same thought had, of course, occurred to Zacharias. Prunella’s education was a demand upon his time and energy that he could ill afford. But the thought had followed quick upon its heels that he ought to make the most of every opportunity he possessed to teach Prunella, if she were to govern her familiars safely. It seemed increasingly likely that very little time remained to him to do it.
Then, too, this lesson had required special preparations. It would not be nearly as convenient to repeat it on any other day; indeed, to seek a postponement might occasion offence. Therefore Zacharias insisted.
“Let us resolve to complete five formulae today,” he said. “They shall culminate in a spell with which I think you will be pleased. It is beyond anything we have done before, and requires us to be outdoors. I have reserved a tolerably large space for us at the Park, but I beg you will have particular regard to my concealment charms. It is early for anyone to be about, but we cannot be too careful to avoid detection.”
“I think it is all silliness, and you ought to be spending your time thinking of ways to defeat Mr. Midsomer, not teaching me tricks,” said Prunella. The mention of a great spell had piqued her interest, however, and she followed this with:
“But since you are set upon it, I suppose I must comply, and the exercise will be good for the familiars.”
Prunella insisted on her familiars attending all her lessons. She vowed she could not learn half as well without them, and since the purpose of her education was to enable her to understand the creatures, Zacharias permitted it, despite the risk of discovery. The familiars made poor students, however—they were discourteous, inattentive and quarrelsome; insisted on exploded theories in the face of Zacharias’s polite reasoning; and often disrupted the lesson with their squabbling.
They arrived so early in the Park that there was not a soul to be seen, but Prunella kept her familiars within her reticule until they had reached the concealed grove where the lesson was to be conducted. She set the reticule upon the ground and opened it so that the tiny heads of the familiars—shrunk for the occasion so that each creature would fit upon the palm of her hand—could peer over the side.
“Now mind you behave yourselves. We shall have time to talk later, but if you are always interrupting I shall never learn all the things Zacharias says I must learn,” said Prunella. “Nidget, I beg you will attend, and not abandon your notes halfway through, as you did before. It is so very useful to have a record of each lesson.”
“If Youko had not distracted me, the blackguard, you would have the most perfect record the world ever saw.”
“Blame attaches to no one, I am sure,” said Prunella hastily. “Pray do not fight, or wander off, and under no circumstance must you leave the reticule. I must go, my darlings, or Zacharias will be cross.”
“I thought we might consider the enchantments for summoning today,” said Zacharias. “We shall begin with the simplest example of such spells, a charm for drawing upon atmospheric magic—ours is thin stuff, but it is as well to know how to get at it if ever you need it. Then we shall work our way up to the greater summoning spells. We will restrict the scope of our endeavours to this realm—you have no cause to do it, but to seek to summon oneself a familiar from Fairy is both unlawful and exceedingly dangerous. Summoning within this realm is not necessarily unethical, however, and if one agrees it in advance with the person to be summoned, it need not even be annoying.”
“Will I be summoning a person?” said Prunella.
“Oh yes. One can summon anything capable of being acted upon by magic,” said Zacharias. “The gentleman I shall ask you to summon is a colleague of mine, whom I met at a council of the world’s magicians last year. We have since corresponded by shewstone, and he has agreed to assist us. I beg you will not mention your familiars, but he knows I have been instructing you in the principles of thaumaturgy. We may trust him to be discreet: he is a reformer himself, though something of a skeptic as regards female magic, and he has some notion of the difficulties we face.”
Prunella thought very little of the charm for drawing upon atmospheric magic, but the summoning formulae were a pleasing contrast, more complex than any of the spells she had learnt before, and she soon grew absorbed. The fourth formula was the most difficult. Prunella was so little satisfied with her performance that she would have begun at once upon a second trial, seeking to correct the inelegancies of the first, if Zacharias had not stopped her.
“The summoning has taken, and you will saddle us with someone probably very cross if you repeat it,” said Zacharias.
“After all your demands for practise—” Prunella began, but then she saw the dark spot upon the horizon speeding towards them.
It came on swiftly, skimming above the trees, until it resolved into the figure of a gentleman, dressed in foreign costume and travelling astride a cloud.
Prunella only had time to exclaim a pleased “Oh!” before the gentleman’s insubstantial conveyance drew up in front of them. He dropped to the ground, landing on his fe
et, and bowed.
He was of Oriental extraction, with a high, broad expanse of forehead, amused narrow eyes, and greying hair in a queue. He was dressed with great elegance in silk robes, his feet clad in neat boots, and his appearance was so completely that of the foreigner that Prunella was astonished when he said, in impeccable English:
“A most effective enchantment: I congratulate you, Wythe. However, did not the second verse go awry? My journey was unaccountably bumpy for a stretch.”
Prunella flushed and said, “It was only my first attempt.”
“Miss Gentleman,” said Zacharias, “may I introduce my colleague, Mr. Hsiang Han? Mr. Hsiang is a magician renowned in his native China for his great learning. Mr. Hsiang, Miss Prunella Gentleman, the lady I have been instructing in the magical arts.”
“Did you cast that spell, indeed, Miss Gentleman?” said Mr. Hsiang, bowing. “When Wythe explained his plan to reform women’s education, I told him he was a mere visionary—I called him any number of bad names—but now I see the reason for his resolve. Such a protégé, uniting beauty with genius, must fire any magician’s reforming zeal.”
“That is all very gallant, but I wish you would explain where I went wrong in the second verse,” said Prunella, too vexed by her mistake to be civil.
Zacharias looked reproachful, but Mr. Hsiang laughed.
“You expended too much power at the outset, so that too little remained for the conclusion,” he said. “In magic, as in all else, balance must be preserved. Let me send my cloud away, and you can execute the formula again to require its return.”
The second attempt proved satisfactory.
“I am obliged to you for your help,” said Prunella, looking at Mr. Hsiang with candid friendliness. “Would you be so good as to name your translation spell? It must be a very clever one, for I can scarcely tell that there is an enchantment at work at all.”
“She has found me out!” exclaimed Mr. Hsiang, looking at Zacharias.
“I said nothing,” said Zacharias. “That was Miss Gentleman’s own discovery.”
“Why, it was not very difficult to find it out,” said Prunella. “Your words sound green.”
“Are you able to describe the mechanism of the spell yourself, Miss Gentleman?” said Zacharias. “You should have sufficient understanding of basic thaumaturgical principles to deduce its workings.”
“I am very happy to provide an explanation,” said Mr. Hsiang. “I understand the lady has only recently begun her studies in our field.”
Prunella was on her mettle. It was one thing to complain privately to Zacharias that he demanded too much of her, and their lessons ran on for too long. The ironic eye of a learned foreign magician was another matter altogether, however. Prunella was in truth proud of her magical ability—though she had little fondness for thaumaturgical books and dry theory, magic itself she loved—and she was determined not to make a poor show before a stranger.
“There is a binding element, for otherwise one would hear two voices,” she said, thinking aloud. “The Culpeper solution would not do, for it only applies to solid objects, so it must be Starr’s entwining that is at work. But that is only the combining element. I shall say it is Horner’s spell for interpretation, with Starr’s entwining, bound together with Crashaw’s preserve. Do I have it, sir?”
“I require Wythe’s assistance to make sense of your answer,” said Mr. Hsiang, laughing. “Wythe, this Horner, this Starr and Crashaw, are they—?”
He spoke in quick succession a series of foreign names, fluid sounds that dropped unchanged through the translation spell.
Zacharias nodded. To Prunella he said:
“The translation spell is one indigenous to the Chinese, and there is an additional element—a mind-reading element, the enchantment for which I shall teach you in due course—but yours is an ingenious solution, and very close to the truth.”
Prunella made a moue of discontent, but the two thaumaturges seemed better pleased with her success. Zacharias’s satisfaction was obvious, and Mr. Hsiang’s manner altered. Prunella’s dissection of what was really quite a cunningly disguised little formula had put her up sufficiently in his estimation that he dispensed with gallantry, and adopted the manner of a scholar addressing a student.
“That was not a bad analysis,” he said. “Since I have answered your summons upon my cloud, Miss Gentleman, should you like to take a turn on it? It is the most delightful means of transport—nothing so comfortable as a well-conditioned cloud—and cloud-riding is a useful spell to have in one’s arsenal. I have had cause to thank Heaven for my cloud more than once.”
“I should be pleased to learn to ride it,” said Prunella. “Though we have only completed four formulae today, this will make the fifth, so Mr. Wythe can have no objection.”
She shot him a saucy glance, which extracted a half-smile from Zacharias.
“I have no fault to find with your arithmetic,” he said. “It will make an excellent lesson in controlling the elements of nature, and I am obliged to Mr. Hsiang for offering to teach you the formula. I will take the liberty of reminding you both of the concealment spell, and beg that you will take care not to go beyond its bounds. The boundaries should offer some resistance to your approach, but if you happen to stray beyond them, you must turn back at once.”
“Let me call myself a new cloud,” said Mr. Hsiang.
He stuck two fingers into his mouth and emitted a shrill whistle, at which a wisp detached itself from the snowy white cumulus heaped in the sky, and flew to his hand.
“Now, Miss Gentleman, if you will submit to being helped onto my old cloud—a steady, good-tempered mount, who will show you the way of it—you are quite balanced? You must think yourself into equilibrium. Cloud-riding is an act of disciplined imagination. Splendid. Away we go!”
Cloud-riding was indeed delightful: the sensation of height, of delicious liberty, was beyond anything Prunella had ever experienced. In a few moments they were above the trees. Prunella might have been nervous if she had not been absorbed by the effort of controlling her cloud. It was necessary for them to fly in small circles if they were not to breach the bounds of Zacharias’s hiding spell, and directing the cloud required her close attention.
They rode standing upon their clouds, and Prunella realised that she needed to lean forward in the direction she wished to go if she was to move at all. The cloud itself made a soft rest for her feet, but the posture required of her body was uncomfortable in its novelty, and surprisingly difficult to maintain.
“After a period of time the cloud will begin to believe itself as solid as you think it,” said Mr. Hsiang. “A cloud makes a fine pillow as well—smells pleasantly of rain—though we do not, of course, rest our heads on the same clouds as those on which we plant our feet. Still, one must never forget that a cloud is a wild thing. It requires a continuous, determined exertion of will to maintain your conviction, and spread the conviction to your cloud, that it is a solid thing, capable of bearing your weight, and happy to do it.”
“You speak as though the cloud were a conscious being, sir, capable of thought and feeling.”
“But of course it is. What can Wythe have been teaching you?” said Mr. Hsiang. “Do not you know that magic can only issue from, and act upon, that which contains an intelligent or feeling spirit? Fortunately such spirits are present in almost everything, even the apparently inanimate.
“This shred of cloud, for instance”—he tapped it with his foot—“is a tuft of the Jade Emperor’s beard. Of course, it is not intelligent in the sense that anyone would account it a brilliant conversationist. It will never pass for a licentiate. But in some foggy, inhuman way it knows itself: it wishes ardently to return to the beard of which it is a small but noble part, and focused thought is needed to keep it under heel.”
“How extraordinary,” said Prunella, peering at the cloud beneath her ow
n heel.
“No less extraordinary than that the insight should be new to you,” said Mr. Hsiang severely. “I suppose Wythe has been training you in the strict Occidental tradition. For a European he is learned, but he is still prey to many of the curious prejudices that bedevil your people.”
“A European?” Prunella exclaimed. Her cloud bucked a trifle, but she stamped down, and it seemed to quiet itself.
“That was gracefully done,” said Mr. Hsiang, observing this. “As you can see, even the slightest disturbance in one’s emotions may disrupt the progress of one’s cloud. It is clear you possess the willpower to master your cloud, however—it is all down to willpower, you know. But to return to Wythe, certainly he is a European, in upbringing, education, habit of mind—even, for all I know, in his religion. Let us not be misled by such a trifle as an accident of birth or colour.”
“You would not call it a trifle,” said Prunella in a low voice, “if you knew how his fellow Europeans use him.”
This embarrassed Mr. Hsiang. He said, with an attempt at lightness:
“I suppose I could not expect you to agree that birth is of no account! I could not think why you seemed so familiar, and your name led me astray, Miss Gentleman, but it is clear which family you belong to. It is many years since I last saw the Grand Sorceress, but I could not mistake that profile! I hope she is well? I did not think to see her relations in lands so farflung, but to one of her powers, the distance between England and Mysore must be nothing.”
“The Grand Sorceress?” said Prunella.
“The Keeper of the Seven Spirits,” said Mr. Hsiang, surprised. “She whom Tipu Sultan named the mistress of the four points of the realm. The Grand Sorceress of Seringapatam, I mean. I hope I did not speak amiss? You look so much like her, that— But I am mistaken. My mind is going with age. I beg your pardon, Miss Gentleman.”
