Kip & Shadow

by David Pietrandrea

“Well, it’s less academic and more an art form. There are three basic principles that define alchemy. They’re not just chemical, but philosophical.

  “Sulfur represents the soul, the life force that moves through our body.

  “Mercury is the animating force, the spirit that binds our ‘soul’ to the physical world.

  “Salt denotes the physical body, our biological form. It’s the vessel that houses the spirit and soul.

  “Together they make a unifying force, the Soul of All Things. Unlock these principles and you unlock the deepest secret there is, the power of life itself.”

  The power to bring back Enos.

  Shadow rose up on his hind legs, his two paws on the table’s edge, and peaked at the silent dinner table.

  “Sulfur, mercury, and salt,” Fairfield said. “There’s a quaintness to it that appeals.”

  “I think it’s far more noble than that,” Blackmoor said. “If you’ll forgive me, Master Kip, it’s magic in the age of reason. Everything starts with magic, with the seed of an idea and the hope that it may bear fruit.”

  “Sulfur, mercury, and salt,” Britten echoed wistfully.

  “I think we need some refreshment, if we’re to continue this debate,” Blackmoor added.

  He rang a silver bell on the table.

  Kip was surprised to see no valet. Blackmoor’s own daughter, Clover, entered the room instead, carrying a silver tray with a collection of small cordials on it. Again Kip felt himself shrink from her.

  How her father could summon such an overwhelming string of words while his daughter had none was a great injustice. It was made worse by Mr. Blackmoor’s profession, a career that depended on his voice, drawing forth magic with the spoken word. If she had the ability, it would never be known. It was painful to see her reduced to a servant. Perhaps Mr. Blackmoor meant well by giving her such a position, but perhaps not.

  Kip averted his eyes, looking down at his plate. He’d spilled a coin-sized drop of jam on the tablecloth, a small red stain that immediately embarrassed him. He placed his hand over it.

  Clover circled the table, placing a cordial by each guest.

  “Thank you, my dear,” Blackmoor said.

  The other guests barely noticed her, but as she approached Kip he looked up, catching her eye. Again a swell of anxiety washed over him. Her eyes expressed the thoughts that her mouth could not, brimming with hidden secrets. Kip had his secrets too, and one conspirator could always spot another.

  Clover set the small glass of liquid at his place, crystalline-red against the table cloth.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, but she retreated quickly without any recognition. Shadow watched her as she left the room, a pale ghost speeding away.

  “Now we may be refreshed, gentlemen, and my dear lady,” Mr. Blackmoor declared. “Let us consume and ingest; in Latin, let us vorō, let us be vorax. To our good health and continued pursuit of the capital–T–‘Truth’!”

  They raised their glasses and imbibed. The cordial was warm in the mouth, slightly viscous but so smooth that Kip wondered if he had even drank it. He looked down at the remaining liquid in his glass, a tawny copper that swirled in the bottom like a tiny whirlpool. Kip caught a trace of valerian root. It was nearly masked by the alcohol, but it was there. There was something else too, something that sent a spike of alarm through his system, but it was too late.

  A dull buzz filled his ears and he looked up to see Fairfield and Britten looking around the room, apparently hearing the same noise. It grew louder, thrumming in his skull.

  “And now for dessert,” Blackmoor spoke through the haze of noise.

  6

  A paralysis crept into Kip’s muscles, locking his arm in place on the table; his glass still raised. He felt a weight in his chest and was suddenly aware of his lungs, filling and emptying their oxygen, streaming out his life-force.

  Amelia Britten forced out words, each one punctuated with her labored breath.

  “What. Have. You. Done. Blackmoor?”

  “Only what is necessary. You have just ingested distilled hemlock laced with valerian root, a tincture of my own design, and one aided by magic. One cannot rely on roots and twigs alone like some damnable herbalist.”

  Fairfield made a weak choking sound, and Blackmoor looked his way. Kip saw his eyes and the madness there, marveling that he hadn’t noticed it before.

  “Don’t trouble yourself, Fairfield. The tincture alone won’t kill you. Perhaps the practitioners at the Science Academy can help you.”

  There was a sharp growl from under the table, and Shadow sprang into action. His small form split, finding every shadow in the room. Each bit of darkness vibrated; the outline of books on the shelves, the edge of dishes on the table, the forked shadows of the candelabra; they all moved in unison.

  “You’re bad,” Shadow’s echo-voice hissed, as the darkness descended on Blackmoor, stretching towards him like groping tentacles.

  “Tiresome creature,” Blackmoor said. He reached under the table and Kip heard a sharp click.

  Blinding light shot from the top of each bookshelf, turning everything white. It was like an overexposed picture, fading everything into a white void. Kip looked at his hand extended in front of him, now like a white glove. For a moment, he thought he could see through the flesh itself, the bones of his hand grotesquely holding his cordial.

  Shadow cried out as he was forced to retreat, each part of him pushed back until almost no shadows remained. He crawled his way across the table, and found the dim shadow of the Plateau de Délices for refuge. He remained there, immobilized.

  “Stop. You’ll kill him.” Kip wheezed, forcing the words past the creeping paralysis, not knowing if Shadow could be killed, not wanting to find out.

  “I’m just ensuring some decorum here,” Blackmoor laughed. “Lord, do you two make a racket. Such dramatics.”

  He looked up at the ceiling.

  “Arc lights, my boy. Two carbon electrodes that ionize gas. Never let it be said that I reject modernism.” He smirked at Fairfield. “Now that that’s out of the way, I will tell you a tale.

  “Right now there are three shades, each in your image, boarding a boat in Surrey, a boat that will be lost at sea. Your presence will be logged with the harbor master, observed by the dock crew, and remarked upon by the general roustabouts of the wharf.

  “Why three such luminaries were together will remain unknown, but perhaps it’s not too surprising. Mediocrity often finds its twin, or triplet, in this case.”

  Blackmoor spoke some mumbled words, his eyes closed, as if he were willing himself into a trance. The repeated mantra left his lips, almost visible as it carried across the table. A blue fibrous light unwound from his mouth. It wove through serving plates and dimmed candles, inching across the tablecloth, and then to each place-setting, before coiling around each guest.

  Kip had always been able to find calm in the middle of panic. He could make his way to the eye of any storm, so long as he focused, retreating from the moment. This time was no different. He watched Lord Blackmoor with dead eyes, studying each small movement, waiting for a clue to reveal itself, a clue to his motives, and a way out of this trap.

  Blackmoor stopped speaking, his eyes snapped open, his neck craned painfully forward. Two pinpricks of red light shone in his eyes, two sharp embers in a fire. He raised his hands then clapped them together forcefully. The sound was dull and alien, not the sound of two hands meeting.

  Blackmoor reached for a knife on the table, then brought it to his head. He cut off a lock of his silver-white hair and, with another mumbled incantation, offered it to the blue light that bobbed over the table.

  It swallowed the offering with an intense greed, and then snapped to life. Strands of black jumped from its center and spanned the room, like the net of a spiderweb.

  Small pinpoints of light winked to life as the black threads thickened, until the full design came into view.

  The stars, Kip thought. He’s opened
a pathway to the stars.

  The star-scape enveloped the room making a dome above them, leaving only the table and the floor below. A bitter chill followed the vision as a new atmosphere seeped into the room. Kip saw his breath flow out in an icy cloud.

  The star-scape expanded, revealing far-off galaxies spiraling through the blackness.

  Blackmoor spoke, continuing the dinner party as if nothing had happened.

  “Compromise and agreement are for the weak. That’s the work of doubters and the cowards of Parliament, for the weak-willed agnostics who dither when they should commit. Magic is the truth of this world, hard-fought and future-proof. When you’ve unlocked the Primum Dominum, the Prime Mastery, you don’t look elsewhere for data and opinion.”

  Kip looked down at the cordial still raised half way to his mouth. Frost had begun to form on the glass, its snowflake pattern moving towards his hand.

  Francis Blackmoor was transformed, or perhaps revealed. He trained his red eyes on each of them.

  “Spiritualism, the bastard cousin to magic.”

  He turned to Amelia Britten.

  “I cast you out.”

  A snap in the air behind her, a sharp crack like breaking stone. Threads of the star-net sprung towards her like fine silk string, weaving around her body. They encircled her, binding her arms and legs, criss-crossing her chest and then pouring into her gaping mouth. She was nearly mummified when they jerked backwards, yanking her and her chair into the void behind her. The motion upset the table, spilling her drink and sending her plate to the floor where it shattered, its sound oddly dulled.

  She gave a scream, a final shriek that didn’t come from her mouth, but seemed to be psychically transmitted. It was a horrific sound that rang in Kip’s ears long after it had stopped.

  “Science, the small death by rationality.”

  Blackmoor turned to Stephen Fairfield.

  “I cast you out.”

  Fairfield’s eyes darted back and forth with a sickening panic, terror widening them. The same coils that had grabbed Britten, snaked around him and yanked him into the starry void.

  Kip had seen powerful spells before, he’d seen Blackmoor himself perform them, but never anything like this. He felt his hair and clothing rise as if gravity no longer existed in the room. He strained to see Shadow out of the corner of his eye, but his friend was hidden from view, nearly absorbed by the arc lights.

  Fairfield struggled in his chair as he floated in front of a backdrop of stars. He strained against the silken threads, his eyes rolling wildly.

  His motion slowed to a slight twitching and then stopped completely. He joined Britten, the pair floating in a lazy ballet.

  “Well, now that that unpleasantness is out of the way.”

  Blackmoor waved his hand and Kip felt the life flood back into his body. The chill of the stars vanished immediately, replaced with an artificial warmth. The room was just a dining room again, now absent two guests.

  Released from the effects of the potion, Kip grabbed a knife and pushed back his chair, knocking it to the floor. He retreated to the back of the room, his back against one of the bookshelves.

  He waited for the tide of fear to roll in, wishing it would wash over him. But, even now, it didn’t come. Kip brandished the knife, gleaming like white hot steel under the arc lights.

  “Please turn them off.”

  Mr. Blackmoor smiled. “Will your creature behave?”

  “Yes.”

  “And will you? You think to stab me with that knife, to kill me with something so quaint?”

  “If I must.”

  “And why wouldn’t I cast you into the void with our late and unfortunate guests? Where do you think they are now? Floating in the firmament? Mingling in Saturn’s rings? Saturn’s in retrograde, I hear. It must be peaceful to float out there, a relief to no longer carry the burdens of the world, just light and shadow in the vacuum of the cosmos.”

  Blackmoor smiled. “The cold, Kip. Did you feel it? I thought it would be enough to get a rise out of even you.”

  “Turn off the lights!”

  Another click threw the room into darkness.

  “To me, Shadow,” Kip whispered harshly. He heard his friend whimper, then felt the creature reform behind him, the strands of his body weaving back together. His paw-like fingers tugged anxiously at Kip’s leg.

  The candles on the table reignited. Blackmoor smiled, a glint of teeth in the half-light, then raised his glass.

  “Please sit, Master Kip.”

  “I’ll stand, thank you.”

  “Very well.”

  The magician sat back in his chair.

  “There are two roads, Kip. One is the free sharing of ideas and the challenging of conventions, as the so-called great minds of our time argue over the nature of our world. The endless debates and impassioned voices that say ‘consider me’ and ‘validate me,’ no matter how asinine their viewpoint.

  “The second road, now that’s a more twisted path. It’s narrow enough that one must walk it alone, but that lonely pilgrimage, that’s the only route to true knowledge. It is hard-won but pure and true.

  “And when you’ve walked that road your disgust for those who haven’t grows. How dare lesser minds question the pilgrim when he holds the capital—T—Truth at his breast. How dare the wisdom of Magic House be questioned as we barrel towards a new century. Are we to enter it in a weakened state of uncertainty? Or close our hand into a fist and strike?

  “Magic has served the world since the dawn of time. It is all that we need, and all that I will allow.

  “Meanwhile, you’re chasing logic with your elements and atoms, trying to find order. Alchemists believe that every element has undeveloped potential, do they not? That the imperfect can be made perfect. And this is why you spend your time, back bent and fingers stained, to find some perfection in the world? Surely you know there’s no such thing?”

  “Not perfection. Purity,” Kip said.

  “I see no difference.”

  “You, for example, have no purity, you’re stained by power and now murder.”

  Blackmoor tutted softly.

  “You want the world to match your wild imaginings. You want to prove your intuitions instead of create something new from them. You’re like our recently departed scientist. You try to turn your fanciful ideas into facts.”

  “And why are you better?”

  “Because I don’t bother with all that. Magic is fantasy made manifest. I don’t give a toss for observation and proof-gathering. The truth is what I say it is. Before tonight would you have believed the truth that a man could open a portal to the stars and cast his enemies through it?”

  Kip felt the balance of the knife in his hand. The metal felt cold, too cold. Shadow still pawed at his leg, digging his claws into his flesh.

  “And why have you spared me? It would seem Alchemy House is no friend to you.”

  “For precisely one reason, the secret in your basement.”

  Kip shrank back and, for the first time, felt the small icy prick of fear. It worked between his ribs, slipping into his heart.

  “I…I don’t know what you mean.”

  Lord Blackmoor laughed, but there was no humor in his voice. It was a dead sound that echoed across the room. His laugh stopped as suddenly as it had started, his jaw snapping shut like a snake’s.

  “Lie to me again, and I kill you.”

  Kip knew that he meant it. He was tangling with a madman now.

  Blackmoor knitted his hands together until his knuckles turned white. He leaned forward.

  “There is one thing that the Alchemists hold dear, one idea that they cling to: that the mystery of death can be revealed. You wish to find the Primal Element, The Soul of all Things, to aid that purpose. You have done something in that basement, something you should have not.

  “And if you believe that I will let some child, some fucking homosexual, uncover the greatest mystery the world has ever known, then you are mistake
n.”

  A small sound escaped Kip’s lips, some part of him trying to escape. He couldn’t stand how transparent he was, how obvious his desires were. He was a pariah, laughed at behind closed doors. Just some fucking homosexual with his obsessions.

  Unrelenting, Blackmoor continued. “You will tell me what you’ve done in Alchemy House, tell me its purpose, and tell me how I may control it. I will go and see this wonder for myself and I will claim it. Then I will burn Alchemy House to the ground.”

  Kip lowered the knife to his side. Lord Blackmoor had done his work. His secrets seemed so selfish now, once dragged into the light. The endless cycle of pining and self-pity that had nourished him for so long. The addiction to his own thoughts, recalling again and again every hurt, every wound. And the one face hovering above it all; Enos, with his green eyes and raven hair.

  And his smile.

  And his voice.

  And his scent.

  “I can’t tell you something I know nothing about,” Kip said. His voice was steady but he felt the sting of tears in his eyes.

  Blackmoor was quick to notice. “Your tears say enough. Enough, at least, to reveal your secrets. How did you do it?”

  “I…I didn’t do anything. I just wished for it to be.”

  But ‘wished’ wasn’t the right word. There was no word for what he’d done.

  Blackmoor was leaning forward now, a look of expectation on his face. More like hunger, Kip thought.

  “I wished to see someone dear to me,” Kip continued, “someone beyond my reach.” Even now he couldn’t say it. Someone dead. “And that wishing brought forth…a portal.”

  Blackmoor’s smile was grotesque. “The most ancient question of all, the question that’s founded religions, caused civilizations to rise and crumble, and you did it for some poxy lover, some fellow bender to share in your abominations.”

  Kip dropped the knife to the floor. He felt the cold again, not sure if it was in his mind or not. Whatever fight had been in him was gone. He looked down at Shadow, still scared and vulnerable.

  “As an Alchemist, you should know better than anyone, the elements of the flesh are the weakest of all.