Fathomless

by Anne M. Pillsworth

  Going into class Tuesday morning, Sean was all set to ask the question, but Marvell went straight to the dry-erase board and wrote EIDOLON on it. “Eye-doe-lin,” he pronounced the word. “Greek for ‘image’ or ‘idol.’ In English, for our purposes, it means ‘ideal.’ An ideal is an abstraction, a perfect idea about something. In magic, eidolon has special meanings.”

  Under EIDOLON, Marvell drew an amoeba radiating yellow squiggles. “Azathoth, who emits pure but chaotic energy, blind force.”

  To the amoeba’s right, he drew a bat-winged eye with three slit pupils. “Nyarlathotep, who imposes order on blind force. The result is what we call creation-eidolons—ideal patterns for creating particular types of energy or matter. You could call them the blueprints for everything.”

  The creation-eidolon he drew issuing from Nyarlathotep was a neat black box. He connected it via arrow to a clump of blue bubbles: “Yog-Sothoth,” Marvell named the bubbles. “Who acts as guardian for the creation-eidolons, a sort of cosmic library.”

  Daniel typed like a madman. He and Sean had decided Daniel should take notes for them both, while Sean, the better artist, should copy drawings. He embellished his version of Marvell’s diagram with letters, an A in Azathoth’s “stomach,” an N crowning Nyarlathotep, a Y protruding from Yog-Sothoth like the legs of a stick figure plunged into the acid seething of the librarian god.

  Marvell droned on. “Only Nyarlathotep can fashion creation-eidolons, but all magicians impose will on force, intending it to do one thing or another. Some intentions direct energy, while other intentions substantiate it, making it material or changing one material into another. Daniel, some examples of directed force?”

  Daniel reeled off, “Telekinesis, telepathy, precognition, illusion, clairvoyance, pyrokinesis.”

  “Sean, of substantiated force?”

  The first one was easy: “Summoning, Professor, if you give the summoned thing an actual body in our plane.”

  “And?”

  “Um, alchemy, and shape-shifting.”

  “Yes. And?”

  There was a major one with a name he couldn’t remember under the stress of Marvell’s gaze. “Some psycho-thing. Shub-Niggurath does it.”

  Marvell cocked an eyebrow, then drew in red a tree trunk with toothy mouths and flailing tentacles. “Shub-Niggurath, who transforms creation-eidolons from idea to reality. We call the process?”

  Psycho, psycho, psycho-something from the Bible—

  But Marvell waited only seconds before asking, “Do you know, Daniel?”

  Cornered, Daniel had to answer: “Psychogenesis, Professor.”

  Okay, Sean wouldn’t have come up with that anytime soon. Still.

  Marvell gave Daniel an approving nod. “Correct. But psychogenesis belongs solely to the Outer Gods. Let’s return to the kind of intentions that have practical applications in human magic—”

  Practical applications, finally. Sean jumped in: “Professor? I was wondering—so, I formed a magical intention when I summoned the Servitor?”

  Marvell had begun to erase the board. He didn’t turn back to the table until he had finished. “No, that’s exactly what you didn’t do. Orne gave you a spell devised by Enoch Bishop, and the intention to summon a certain familiar is inherent in its symbolism and incantations. To put it bluntly, Sean, you borrowed Enoch Bishop’s intention. His will formalized.”

  “But I was the one who intended to call this Servitor, so doesn’t that count?”

  Marvell gazed upward; when he spoke, it was to the distant ceiling: “I’m concerned, Sean. You always drift back to the summoning. It strikes me you’re trying to make one act of secondhand magic into your claim to fame.”

  The ice water always on the table during class remained on its tray, but Sean felt as though a poltergeist had poured the whole pitcher down his back. Daniel’s chair creaked. Sean didn’t dare look at him, so he kept looking at Marvell.

  And Marvell kept addressing the ceiling: “That’s not necessary, you know. The Order acknowledges the potential that allowed you to act as an extension cord between Enoch’s intent—the spell—and the energy Enoch’s Master gifted you. But you didn’t shape the intent or independently gather the energy, and it will be some time before you learn how. So slow down, please. Stop dwelling on last summer and keep to the task at hand.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that, Professor.”

  “Perhaps not, Sean.”

  Daniel’s chair hadn’t creaked again. Was he still there? Yeah, but he was posing for a statue of Dude Totally Absorbed in His Laptop.

  “Well,” Marvell said, and smiled as if he hadn’t just delivered a swift nut-kicking. “We’ll continue tomorrow. I have a seminar in Boston. You two have enough reading to get you to two o’clock?”

  Daniel said, “Yes, Professor,” for both of them.

  In his wake, Marvell left an oppressive silence. The library clock read eleven thirty, not too early for lunch, but Sean already had a gutful of humble pie to digest.

  Daniel closed his laptop and dutifully got out a book Geldman had given him. Its catchy title was On the Mysteries of the True Atlantis off Novo-Anglia, and of its Origins and Denizens, and its author was everyone’s favorite, “A Gentleman of Boston in the Massachusetts Commonwealth.” On the cover was a woodcut of two Puritan guys in a boat surrounded by mermaids and mermen, though the merpeople seemed to have frog legs, not fish tails. Frog faces, too, and Sean had probably looked as goggle eyed as them when Marvell had let him have it.

  Instead of opening the book, Daniel tugged at his neck brace as if it chafed him. It probably did, hot as the last week had been. Glad for any distraction, Sean said, “Dude, you really have to wear that thing all the time?”

  “What?”

  “Your brace. I mean, your neck doesn’t seem to bother you much.”

  Daniel dropped his hand from the foam collar. “My neck feels okay. But my doctor said to wear this for two more months.”

  “Sucks. That’s the rest of the summer.”

  “I can deal.” Daniel nudged his book aside. “Look, Sean. I believed you.”

  Sean blinked. “Believed me what?”

  “That you didn’t ask Marvell about the summoning to brag.”

  It was a relief for the elephant in the room to stomp center stage. “I just wanted a straight answer.”

  “I figured. You did kind of interrupt his lecture, though.”

  “So I pissed him off.”

  “Yeah, but it was still harsh, saying you didn’t do anything magical on your own.”

  “What if he was right?”

  “In that case, would Redemption Orne still be after you? Anyway, I never heard Marvell talk like that.”

  “That’s because he thinks you’re great.”

  Daniel drew in a sharp breath.

  Damn. “And you are! You and Eddy. Plus he doesn’t have to worry you’ll do something stupid.”

  “He’s right about Eddy.” Daniel smiled weakly. “Me, who knows? But why should Marvell think you’ll mess up?”

  It had been more than a week since Sean discovered the deep-down reason for Marvell’s uneasiness, and he hadn’t even told Eddy yet. She had to be the first to know about his connection to Orne, because ever since their pirate–spy blood pact in the third grade, Eddy had been his secret-keeper, and a blood pact had no expiration date. But maybe he could make Daniel understand about Marvell without going into his crazy ancestry. “It’s because of Orne,” he said.

  “What about him?”

  “Marvell’s worried about why Orne wants me for his apprentice. Like, does Orne sense I have dark-side potential? Like, I might sign up with Nyarlathotep after all?”

  Daniel shook his head. “Marvell said all that?”

  “Well, not exactly, but he did say I have to go slow with magic. And Geldman said yesterday, the way Marvell feels about Orne is probably the reason I’m not getting a mentor until next year.”

  “You’re not?”

&n
bsp; Oh right, that was another thing he’d kept to himself. “Nope. I’m not even allowed to do any practical magic until then.”

  “Did you tell Eddy?”

  “Not yet.”

  Daniel worked fingers under his brace and scratched like his neck was the enemy. The way he grimaced, it had to hurt.

  “Hey—”

  At Sean’s matching wince, Daniel abandoned the self-assault. “Eddy figured you were mad about something Geldman had told you. That’s why she went to her room early last night, in case you wanted to talk. I think she was bummed when you didn’t show up.”

  Surprised, anyway. “It’s—we’ve been tight so long. Did you ever hear what she did during the Servitor mess?”

  This time Daniel’s smile was anything but weak. “Helen says Eddy talked to you to keep the Servitor from taking over your mind. Then she beat on it with a baseball bat and kept it from killing your dad.”

  “You so want Eddy on your side.”

  “I do, man.”

  “I was wanting to talk to her. But a lot of it’s about Marvell, and she thinks he’s Professor Perfect.”

  “Fan girl.”

  “Exactly.”

  Again Daniel went to attack his neck beneath its foam barricade. He checked himself. “It’s not fair you aren’t getting a mentor and learning practical magic, same as me. Maybe not to do the big-ass stuff you did before—”

  “You heard Marvell say how big-ass that was.”

  “He was trying to pop your swelled head,” Daniel said, face sober but eyes gleaming.

  The gleam freed Sean to laugh until laughing loosened the springs in his chest that Marvell had wound aching tight. “He wouldn’t pop my head in Helen’s library. Blood on old books, bad.”

  “Important safety tip—thanks, Egon.”

  Was that a Perfect Movie Moment from the new guy? “I guess Eddy taught you our game. Ghostbusters, by the way.”

  “Busted. Five points or ten?”

  “Should be five, but because you’re a noob, I’ll give you ten.”

  Grinning, Daniel stood. “I’ll waive the points if you’ll make lunch.”

  “Deal.”

  * * *

  Without Helen or Eddy around to enforce reasonable nutrition standards, Sean made his infamous Sky-High sandwiches, bologna and cheese with potato chips squashed between the layers. After that belly bomb, he was thinking nap, not the next chapter of Henry Arkwright’s History of the Cthulhu Mythos. Daniel, on the other hand, was alert to the point of drumming his fingers on the breakfast bar. “Maybe we could do something besides read,” he said.

  “Does this something include moving?”

  “No, you can sit.”

  “Good enough. What’s the plan?”

  Daniel went to close the kitchen door. Back at the bar, he said, “Since the Order won’t give you a mentor, maybe we can share Geldman.”

  “How?”

  “I can teach you what he’s teaching me.”

  “Magic?”

  “What else?”

  Candlemaking? Victorian home décor? “What about Marvell not wanting me to do practical magic?”

  “I don’t think that’s fair. Do you?”

  “No, but I don’t want you sticking your neck out.”

  “I’ll only stick it out when there aren’t any guillotines around.”

  Sean straightened from his stuffed sprawl and scanned the backyard. If Marvell was lurking behind a stack of plywood, he was doing a good job of it. “I guess you could just show me the stuff you’re learning.”

  “Sure.” Daniel swept their paper plates into the garbage can, clearing the decks for action. Sean got a paper towel and wiped the bar down, his heart picking up speed at the prospect of real magic.

  Resettled, Daniel said, “What Marvell was talking about, creation-eidolons, psychogenesis? That’s great, we’ve got to know theory, but Geldman puts things a lot plainer.”

  Geldman would talk like a normal person, even though he had to know way more about theory than Marvell. Not to derail Daniel’s lecture, Sean kept the opinion to himself. “He doesn’t use—” Jargon. “—technical terms?”

  “Not much. It’s more than style, though. See, most of the Order are Source magicians. Geldman’s an elementalist, which is like going off the grid.”

  “Not using electricity?”

  “Not using the blind force Marvell talked about. Geldman calls that Source energy, capital S, because the Source is Azathoth. Almost no one uses pure Source energy, though. It only gets to earth through a few portals or rifts—good thing, because it would fry most people’s brains. A few magicians allied with Nyarlathotep can use it. Not even all of them.”

  Could Orne? “So if you can’t use Source energy—”

  “You can’t use it pure. But mostly it filters through lots of interdimensional fabric first. That weakens it down to ambient energy, which is everywhere, all the time.”

  “And that’s what most magicians use?”

  “Right, but elementalists go a step further. They use energy that’s seeped into earth or air or water, or that’s coming back out of material as fire. They believe the nature of that energy’s different, changed—now it belongs to whatever element absorbed it, not to Azathoth. I guess there’s a controversy about whether the elementalists are fooling themselves about getting away from the Outer Gods, but anyhow, going elemental is advanced magic, so Geldman’s teaching me Source magic to start.”

  If Geldman would teach Source magic, and most of the Order used it, it had to be okay. Even considering the Source. “So there’s magical energy all around us, here in the kitchen.”

  “Everywhere.”

  “And you can feel it?”

  “Not all the time. Only when I channel it to do magic.”

  “What’s that even mean, though? Channeling, intentions. How’s it work?”

  “It’s different for each magician.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  Daniel laughed. “Right, why can’t there be one easy method? But it’s all about symbols. Human brains don’t like abstractions, so to channel energy, you have to come up with your own symbolic complex for doing it.”

  Sean slumped again. “Symbolic complex. That’s as bad as creation-eidolons!”

  “If I can figure it out, you can.”

  “So you have? You can do magic?”

  Daniel checked the kitchen door, then the clock over the sink, before nodding. “A little.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Lame stuff. But I’ll show you.” From his breast pocket, Daniel extracted a pencil stub two inches long, which he set on the countertop. Parallel to the stub, he arranged a slip of notepaper, and then he scooted his stool back. “So check me. I can’t touch the bar even with my feet.”

  Sean checked. Nope, with his legs stretched straight out and his toes pointed, Daniel still came up inches short.

  “And you can see my hands.”

  “Ah, yeah.”

  “I just don’t want you to think it’s a trick.”

  “I trust you.”

  “Then shut up.”

  “The Great Glassini requires silence!”

  “Shut up.”

  Sean obeyed and waited for Daniel to draw pentagrams in the air or mutter incantations. He did neither, didn’t even look at his pencil stub. Instead his protuberant eyes flicked from side to side until they went glassy, fixed on nothing Sean could see. His body was still except for his shoulders, which rotated like he was trying to swim without moving his arms from his sides. Was he even breathing? Could you concentrate so hard, you forgot to? Though the kitchen AC was on, the atmosphere in the room thickened; Sean felt pressure in his ears, mildly painful.

  He managed not to break silence or squirm on his stool.

  The pencil stub moved.

  Sean didn’t see it, but his straining ears caught the slide of wood on quartz countertop. He looked down in time to catch new movement, the stub’s pivot from p
arallel to the notepaper to perpendicular across it.

  Though his shoulders kept rotating, the trancey glaze left Daniel’s eyes. He leaned forward, breathing, avid.

  Inch by inch, the stub scooted toward him across the paper. Then it pivoted to aim its lead point at Sean. What if Daniel (turning out to be an evil wizard) fired that sucker right between his eyes?

  Cool in theory, better in practice that Daniel straightened, shoulders stilling. “That’s it,” he said, throaty.

  “I saw it,” Sean said.

  “Hope so. I’m done for a while.”

  “No, I mean, I saw it, and before that I felt like something was happening. The air changed. No way that wasn’t magic.”

  “Telekinesis.”

  “Telekinesis counts.”

  “You’ve seen magic a lot more impressive.”

  Sean had seen a Servitor birthed out of flaming briquettes. He’d seen Geldman’s Pharmacy age decades in a second. He’d even seen freaking Nyarlathotep, who could be in innumerable places simultaneously, and so no problem for him to drop in on Sean. “But it’s different with you. That other stuff looked too easy. Like Geldman shrugs, and the pharmacy’s open or closed, and fortunes pop out of the scale, and candles burn forever.”

  As if trying to erase his scars, Daniel rubbed the pencil stub between his fingers. “You’re not surprised with Geldman, because you figure he can do about anything. With me, you don’t expect it.”

  “You’re a normal guy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So when you do magic, you make it seem—”

  “Really real?” Eddy said.

  She couldn’t have been standing in the kitchen doorway for long. During the weighty silence of Daniel’s buildup to magic, Sean would have heard her turn the knob. “Um, door’s closed, you knock first?”

  “That would’ve messed up the magic.” She came in and snagged a stool. “I knew Daniel was going to show you what he’s learned so far. He showed me yesterday, while you were with Geldman. He levitated a straw!”

  “About an inch,” Daniel said.

  “That’s more than Sean can do until he gets a mentor. Which will be when?”