The Book of Magic

by George R. R. Martin

  Carolien went on, “But this book—” She pointed at the smaller one, then smiled at Archie. “I know you know what this is. In Latin it bears the title Extasia Lux Tenebris, Ecstasy of Light in Darkness. I do not know the Arabic, I’m afraid.”

  Archie said, “Please tell me you protected yourself before touching it.”

  “Of course.” She held up her hands. Jack could see that they were covered in a thin blue gel. Archie nodded.

  Carolien said, “In English this is known sometimes as The Book of Alterations. It is not a compendium of workings as the other is, but methods of changing them.”

  Jack nodded. “Okay. Then what does this one”—he pointed at the larger book—“tell us to do to see any Djinn hiding from sight?”

  Carolien rolled her eyes. “As we might guess, it involves exotic ingredients. Some of our long-ago colleagues seemed to wish to impress each other. In this matter, it tells us to mix the powdered brain of a fly with the eggs of an ant, and rub this rather sparse mixture on the eyelids.”

  “Beauty tips of the ancients,” Jack said. “And the alteration?”

  “Ah. I have determined, from studying the Extasia Lux Tenebris, that if we add a few drops of five-D printer’s ink, and put some of it on your fingertips, and the tip of your tongue as well as the eyelids, it will allow you to summon her.”

  “Great,” Jack said. “Let’s get to work.”

  Archie said, “Perhaps I can help with the ingredients. Suleiman International—”

  “No need,” Jack said. He punched in a number on his cellphone. “This is John Shade,” he said when someone answered. “Number HL856NK9.”

  “What is he doing?” Archie asked Carolien.

  “He is calling TASH. The Travelers’ Aid Supply House.”

  Jack told the person at the other end the ingredients they needed. Then he added, “One more thing. Two, actually. I need a zero box, about seven inches long, with an opening at one end two inches high. And a heat mesh glove, right hand.”

  Archie asked Carolien, “Where is this wondrous compendium located?”

  “At the moment, Capetown. It moves.”

  “Then how will what we need get here? I’m afraid I don’t—there’s not much time left.”

  She looked at him and smiled. “Drone elementals,” she said.

  In the old days there were just four elementals, for each of the basic forms of matter—gnomes for Earth, sylphs for Air, undines for Water, and salamanders for Fire. Now there were elementals for everything, and they were not creatures but the thing itself—garbage elementals, new car elementals, fake news elementals. Anytime something new comes into the world, an elemental comes with it. Jack and Carolien had recently gone to a party hosted by a Traveler who was dating a gender-fluid elemental.

  It was only a few minutes before the drone elementals appeared outside Jack’s window—three spiderlike creatures held aloft by what looked like large silver butterflies. Three packages dangled from the spiders’ claws. Jack opened the window to take the packages and pass them to Carolien, who set them on the table.

  Jack moved the largest package, a foil-wrapped block, to the end of the table. He removed the foil from the top and sides without touching the contents. When he’d finished, there was a rectangular block of gray iron, with a slit on one end. On top of it lay a smaller package, a flat box about four inches long. Jack opened it to take out a folded glove made of gold mesh.

  Archie stared at the larger box. “Is that—” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why don’t I feel it? I am still Fire, you realize.”

  “For the same reason it does not fall through the table, the floor, and down into the center of the Earth. TASH has sealed it. All except that slit on the side. Now watch.”

  Jack put the glove on his right hand. He removed his carbon blade knife from his boot and in one motion thrust it into the slit all the way to the hilt. Then he stepped back, let out a breath, and removed the glove to set it down under the knife handle.

  Archie shuddered, then said, “Ah. Now I understand. To summon Aisha Qandisha is only the first step. I suppose I had hoped we might imprison her, perhaps compel her to release the songs.”

  “I’m sorry,” Carolien said. “I found nothing to suggest such a compromise could work.”

  “Then it is insh’Allah. The will of God.”

  Jack set out the other packages on the table. “Let’s get to work,” he said.

  From the ingredients list, Jack expected absurdly small amounts in the two primary containers. He’d once had to trap a bullet demon who migrated from chamber to chamber of an Immortal Gun. The ingredients for that job had taken him three days to combine, and because of that a Traveler Jack had respected, and even liked, had died. Jack had never quite convinced himself he could not have done it more quickly. Now, however, TASH had apparently found ways to enlarge the “apparitional volume,” as a flyer put it, so that Traveler-size hands could work with them.

  He had just mixed it all together and was ready to apply it when the house phone rang. “What the fuck?” Jack said. He looked at the row of buttons and saw that the call came from the private line he and Irene had set up. Goddamn it, he thought; she knew he was working. And just because he knew she knew that, he realized he’d better answer it. “Miss Yao, I can’t talk now,” he said.

  Normally she would listen and hang up. But normally she would not have called in the first place. She said, “Mr. Shade, there’s—someone—a person here. She says she needs to see you.”

  “Tell her I can’t. Even if she has my card, she’ll have to wait her turn.”

  “I tried. She’s—” Her voice lowered almost to a whisper. Jack had never heard her frustrated like this. She said, “She’s very impressive.”

  “What?”

  “She’s dressed—and she stands—and Jack, Mr. Shade, I mean, she’s—I’m not entirely sure the elevator could hold her.”

  “Oh, my God,” Jack said. “Send her up. Right now. And don’t worry about the elevator. She could ride up in a handcart if she chose to do it.”

  “Yes,” Miss Yao said. Jack could hear the relief in her voice. “She said you would want that. Thank you.” She hung up.

  Jack stared at the others. “Anatolie is here.”

  Carolien said, “What? She’s left her apartment?”

  There was a hint of tension in Carolien’s voice that surprised Jack, but he only said, “Her apartment? I’ve never seen her leave her fucking bed before.” Archie said nothing, only stared at Jack.

  When the knock came, Jack hesitated a moment, not sure how to greet her. Fuck that, he thought, and opened the door.

  “Impressive” was certainly the word. Gone was the cotton shift. Instead, she wore a robe made from panels of bright colors shot through with wavy strands of gold. The collar was huge, stiff, gold and purple, extending over her wide shoulders and down in a point to the top of her breasts. She wore shiny purple boots that reached above her ankles to the bottom of her robe. She had piled her hair, most of it anyway, in concentric circles at the top of her head—for a giddy moment Jack imagined she’d gone to a hairdresser—but the dreads still managed to go down past the outside of her breasts and entwine at her waist, like two snakes in love. Her skin gave off light like the corona of the sun during a solar eclipse.

  Jack said, “Thank you for coming.”

  “It struck me you might need assistance.”

  “I didn’t realize you knew what we were doing.”

  “Oh, Jack, did you think that just because you left me I would ever leave you? Besides, there was a clue.” She turned to Carolien. “Miss Hounstra,” she said. Carolien just nodded. Anatolie glanced at the Extasia Lux Tenebris. “When this is over,” she said, “I would like my book back.”

&
nbsp; Carolien managed to meet her eyes as she said, “Natuurlijk”—Dutch for “naturally.”

  Jack said, “Wait—you got the Book of Alterations from her?”

  Anatolie said, “Apparently Ms. Hounstra discovered the back door to my library. And how to open it. I would not have thought that possible.”

  Before Carolien could answer, Archie suddenly went down on one knee before Anatolie. It was almost as if he’d been in shock and was just now released into action. “Magistera!” he said.

  “No, no,” Anatolie said. “You know I am not—the Elder.”

  “Were you but a copy of a copy of a copy, still you would carry her splendor.”

  Jack said, “You two know each other?”

  “Oh, Jack,” Anatolie said. “As always, you look but you do not see. Your Archie, as you call him, is a high prince of the Djinn.”

  Carolien had said that, but Jack hadn’t really thought about it. Now he said, “But he serves Suleiman International.”

  “There is no shame in that and never will be.”

  Jack turned to Archie, who was standing once more. “My lord,” he said, “if I have insulted you—”

  “Effendi,” Archie said, “you have not, and never could.”

  Carolien said, “Myne Herren—gentlemen. Perhaps we should begin.”

  Anatolie said, “Yes.” She glanced at the zero box, with the knife handle sticking out, then at Jack. “Good. You are learning to prepare.”

  To Anatolie, Carolien said, “Do you want to use the ointment?”

  “Oh, no. That is for Jack. I am only here to assist.”

  Jack turned to Carolien and held up his hands, fingers spread. “Will you apply the ointment, please?”

  Carolien took out a small hawk feather from her Trader Joe’s bag. “Close your eyes,” she said. Jack did so, and a moment later, felt the barest touch on his eyelids, and then his fingertips. He smiled, remembering what Carolien had done with a feather on her huge bed, just a few nights before, surrounded, as always, by carvings of frogs.

  Carolien said, “Now the fingertips.” Jack felt a warm sting in each finger as the feather brushed against it.

  Carolien said, “Do not open your eyes just yet, but please, stick out your tongue.” Jack did as she said. He felt a sharp prick on his tongue that subsided to a warm tingle.

  “There,” Carolien said. “It is finished.” The phrase was an old Traveler formula to mark an operation. Jack hoped it was not overconfident. Carolien said, “You may open your eyes.”

  “Thank you,” Jack said. His voice sounded slightly slurred in his ears. When he first looked, all he noticed was a sharpness in the air, and for a moment he feared the alteration had changed, or diluted, the mixture and made it useless. But then he saw a flicker to his right, and when he looked it was Archie. The djinni did something Jack wouldn’t have expected. He looked away. Jack thought he should avert his eyes, spare his friend embarrassment, but he needed to see. Archie’s human form remained, though it looked brittle, even his suit a little shabby. Inside him, Jack could see channels of fire, like veins and arteries. But the flames were weak, hardly giving off any heat at all. Now Jack looked out the window.

  To his amazement, he could see flickers of fire everywhere—businessmen on the street, schoolkids, homeless people in doorways or parks, workers in cubicles, executives in corner offices, a taxi driver in bed with a Syrian immigrant in a cheap hotel, the entire upper management of the Metropolitan Museum. And not just people—he saw those same flickers in some of the draft horses pulling carriages in Central Park, in dogs on leashes, even rats going through garbage. And everywhere, the flames were dying.

  Behind him, Carolien said quietly, “Schatje, you have to find her. So you can summon her.”

  Jack nodded. He put on the gold mesh glove so he’d be ready when he needed it, then spread his fingers, aimed at the window. “Aisha Qandisha!” he cried out. “Show yourself!”

  At first, all that happened was that his ability to see the flickers of the Djinn spread beyond the city, beyond even the country. He saw them in a Paris bistro, a Dutch gay bar, a Mumbai factory. But then, in North Africa, he spotted something different. There was a low mountain range, hidden by clouds, and at the top of each stood a pyramid, with carvings of human heads, or beasts, at the apex. The pyramids had windows, and through many of them Jack could see those embers. Except—in the very center, in the smallest pyramid—no, in the hill below it—there burned a bright flame. The djinniyah had tried to hide it by surrounding the fire with a body of unparalleled ugliness—rolls of decayed fat, pockmarked bones sticking through torn skin like old parchment, and a face more rat than human.

  “Oh, Aisha,” Jack said, “do you think I’m King Solomon that I care about shit like that? Come to me! Right now!”

  A nest of black snakes, five of them, appeared in the room. Their tails coiled together on the floor, but their bodies rose up, swaying rhythmically. Large red eyes stared at Jack, while long tongues stretched toward his face. For a moment he felt desperate to stay away from them and nearly ran from the room. Then he just laughed, and with his gold-gloved hand slapped them back. “No tricks,” he said. “Show your true self. Now!”

  The snakes dissolved into black smoke that thickened the air, then vanished. Jack said, “Cheap gimmick, Aisha. Give us the real you.”

  A creature appeared in the room. It had the tail of a crocodile, the trunk of a rhinoceros, and the head of a lion, which roared at Jack. He reached down to his boot for his knife, then remembered he had embedded the blade in the zero box and wasn’t ready to remove it.

  “Schatje!” Carolien called. Jack looked to his left just as she tossed her own knife to him. He caught the red-and-black handle. Carolien’s knife wasn’t made for battle, as Jack’s was, but for cutting ingredients to prepare her “experiments.” But the radiant sun blade had been hardened in the Shadow Court, and Jack knew it would work. He slashed at the creature’s neck, where the lion head met the rhinoceros body. The beast screamed, but Jack paid no attention, only cut off the tail as well. The three pieces immediately began to rot and stain the floor. A stench filled the room. Jack worried it might spread through the walls and drive away Irene’s business.

  Suddenly, purple sparks filled the air. It took Jack a moment to realize that Anatolie had stamped her foot. “No more!” she cried out. “Aisha Qandisha. Lolla Layla. You are not playing with children any more. I am talking to you now. Anatolie Erinye. I summon you.”

  A throaty laugh sounded in the room. A raspy woman’s voice said, “You? You are nothing but a duplicate. Anatolie the Younger.”

  “Oh, Aisha, you have lived too long. You’ve become a simpleton. Do you really think I would travel the Homelands and leave nothing but a shell to protect my babies? Then remember Nineveh and trust that this is me, and I command you to appear!”

  A light flared up in the room, a sudden flame that died down but burned steadily, from within a cloud. Out of that cloud a woman dressed in a T-shirt and jeans stepped into the room. Jack had expected something vile and hideous, or maybe soft and voluptuous. As the figure was emerging, he remembered the story of the thirty thousand men in mental hospitals in Morocco. But instead, what came out of the cloud was—Layla, his Layla, no longer dead in her own blood on the kitchen floor, but standing there, filled with love.

  “Oh, Jack,” she said. “Aisha brought me back to you. She found me and led me here. Because we have the same name, Lolla Layla. Jack, I thought I’d never see you again. I love you. I love you so much.”

  Jack made a noise. And then, in just about one motion, his gloved hand yanked the knife from the zero box and thrust it up to the hilt in Layla’s chest.

  A zero box brings anything in it to absolute zero, all molecules locked in complete stillness, as frozen as the laws of nature will al
low.

  “Layla” looked down at the knife buried in her body. Then she looked at Jack. She whispered, “How could you—”

  And then, like a shattered ice sculpture, she cracked all at once. As the pieces fell to the floor, they became like dying coals of a fire that had gone on for far too long. And then they were simply gone.

  Anything in a zero box warms up again in just seven seconds after you remove it. Once Jack had pulled out the knife, he’d committed himself. Now he just stared at the floor where the fire fragments had fallen. A moment later he picked up his knife and thrust it back into its sheath.

  Archie walked over to him, as if to study him. Jack didn’t look up. “Effendi,” Archie said, “how did you know—know for sure—that the Layla who appeared before you was not indeed your wife?” Jack said nothing, but a slight smile moved his mouth.

  Carolien said, “Perhaps I can suggest an answer. I never met Mrs. Shade, but I believe I know her a little from what Jack has told me. If she came back she would not say, ‘Oh, Jack, I love you so much.’ It would be more like—” Her voice slid into a New York accent. “You goddamn sonofabitch. How could you let that poltergeist kill me?” Jack looked up now, smiled at Carolien, and nodded.

  And then he turned to Archie. He was going to ask if the death of Aisha made a difference, but he stopped himself, for there was no point. The power of the dust still ran in Jack’s eyes, and he could see that nothing had changed. The body still looked hard and brittle, the fire within still an ember. Jack looked out the window, saw across the city those same flickers of fire he’d seen earlier.

  He bowed his head, closed his eyes a moment, then turned to Archie. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I thought I—we—could do it, that destroying her would liberate—” He stopped. “Fuck,” he said.