A Radical Act of Free Magic

by H. G. Parry

  Wilberforce smiled a little himself. “Sometimes I don’t think you take me seriously.”

  “I take you very seriously,” Pitt assured him. “I only ever laugh about you to your face.” He shifted cautiously against the seats, trying to find a comfortable position. “And I’m not laughing at you for being worried. I should be worried myself, but I must be too tired.”

  “I’m sleepy too,” Wilberforce said. His eyes were heavy-lidded and shadowed underneath. “Not far now.”

  They had arranged to halt at Scoatney, the house Forester had rented a few hours’ drive from Walmer Castle, and spend the afternoon recovering their energy before the final push. By the time they reached it, Pitt had so little energy that he couldn’t actually summon enough to get out of the carriage, and the mere fact that the carriage had stopped throwing him about was such a welcome change that he almost didn’t want to. He regretted now, bitterly, that he had allowed Forester to be involved. It had seemed prudent—and necessary, given the possibility of the new elixir. But he couldn’t bear to be so vulnerable in front of the Master Templar. It wasn’t only a matter of pride. Deep down, however much they needed each other, they were enemies and always would be.

  Wilberforce was there, however, and Forester’s bloodlines were emerging from a muddle of others and approaching the carriage, so he stirred the last faint embers of his will enough to let his friend help him to his feet. He hadn’t thought the coach particularly warm, but the crispness of the air outside was startling.

  For the first time, Forester was dressed in civilian clothes. It should have softened him, but the lines of his shoulders and the calculated disdain on his face were too clearly that of a Knight Templar.

  “How was your journey?” he said politely.

  “Long and cold,” Wilberforce said. “Thank you.”

  Forester looked Pitt up and down, noticing everything, in the manner of their usual confrontation. Pitt, more from exhausted habit than any real hostility, looked above him as though unaware of his regard at all.

  “Just to absolve myself of responsibility as a practicing alchemist,” Forester said conversationally, “you do remember I told you when you advised me of this plan that you required complete rest and that any exertion, mental or physical, would infallibly kill you?”

  “I do indeed,” Pitt said, as lightly as he could manage. He had kept one hand upon the carriage, but it was still taking all his effort to remain upright. “And you remember I told you I was grateful for your advice, but that I would prefer to die at my post than desert it?”

  “I do. I thought you were quite right then, and I do now.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” Wilberforce sighed. “And of course nobody thought to tell me about this conversation.”

  Forester looked at Pitt a moment longer, then offered his arm. “Here. I’ll help you in.”

  The very last thing in the world he wanted to do was accept it, but he had no choice. He had, at last, reached the point where he couldn’t walk unsupported, and Wilberforce was at least half a foot too short to be of any help in that regard.

  He had no very clear impression of the house or how he managed to enter it, just of a garden giving way to a corridor giving way to a room, all spinning faintly as he tried to breathe and place one foot in front of the other and not lean too heavily upon the Knight Templar. There was a couch beside a fire, and he sank down onto it and stretched out his cramped limbs. Despite everything, the softness and the warmth were blissful.

  “I’m perfectly all right,” he said to Wilberforce, who was looking at him as though he were already attending his funeral. “I just need to sleep for a few hours.”

  “Allow me to judge that, please,” Forester said. “How long ago did you last take the elixir?”

  He hated even the few hazy seconds it took his brain to answer a perfectly simple question. “Seven hours ago.”

  “And how long did it stay down?”

  “Half an hour, possibly more.”

  “But more likely less. Does this hurt?”

  He was about to ask what Forester meant, when he felt a soft jab at his stomach, and then the spasm of pain came so sudden and intense that he cried out and curled around it before he could stop himself. Somewhere quite distant, he marveled quite dispassionately at how all-encompassing it was. For that once instant, it simply erased him.

  “Yes,” he managed when he had caught his breath again. He was trembling, and he hoped nobody would notice. “Yes, it does, to answer your question.”

  “Thank you.” Forester looked very grave, which was understandable. In the years since he’d been all but blackmailed to Pitt’s side, he’d seen him ill quite often. He had never heard him make a sound. “I think I can safely say that since I left you in Bath, there doesn’t seem to be a good deal of improvement.”

  “I suppose consistency is a virtue of a sort.”

  “But the new elixir?” Wilberforce said. His voice, like Forester’s, seemed to be coming from very far away. “What about that?”

  Forester shook his head. “There is no new elixir. Not yet. I’ll keep experimenting, but in truth, I think the magic is as effective as it will ever be. I believe it would work on the infants and children it was intended for. The problem is that your system has taken too much abuse for the elixir to repair.”

  Pitt nodded. Deep inside, he’d known that for a long time. “Thank you. And what about the enemy?” He felt rather than saw Wilberforce turn, surprised. “Would the elixir work on him?”

  “Perhaps. I can’t see any reason why not. He certainly seems healthy. But you can’t offer it to him.”

  “Why not?” Wilberforce said. “Why should he not have the chance to survive without killing others? You can’t still believe that blood magicians are monsters. You’re a scholar. You’ve studied the elixir for years, which means you’ve studied blood magic as closely as anyone ever has. You know it’s a magic like any other.”

  “I know the last pure vampire in Europe has behaved exactly like the rest of his kind.”

  “He was raised to it, and then his family were murdered and he was experimented upon. He’s spent all his life having to kill to survive. Whatever he’s become, he was driven to it by circumstances, not blood.”

  “That may be the case.” For Forester, it was a great admission. “But you heard what I just said. It holds just as true for the soul as for the body. Some damage is too great to be undone.”

  “There’s a reason I didn’t join the Temple Church,” Wilberforce said. “I don’t happen to believe that. Do you, truly?”

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore,” Forester said wearily. The words were drawn from him like shards of glass from a wound. “I don’t know what’s going to happen after tonight. If you are defeated, then the age of blood magic and darkness will return to Europe and then to England, and all progress will be set back three hundred years. And yet if you’re successful, we’ll never return to what we had before this war. A new age has begun somehow, and I don’t know what it will bring. All I know is that I cannot see any place for the enemy in it.”

  Pitt must have closed his eyes then, because time swam and contracted and all at once Forester was shaking him by the shoulder.

  “Not quite yet,” he said. “Take this first, or you’re not going to be able to get up again.”

  It was more liquid than solid, yellow brown, and when Forester stirred it, the mixture slipped off the spoon like half-set jelly.

  “What on earth is that?” Pitt demanded, his mind rallying in sheer alarm.

  “Two eggs mixed with brandy.”

  “Are you just feeding me things to satisfy your own personal curiosity?”

  “I swear it’s medical practice.”

  “I thought you weren’t a physician.”

  “I’m an alchemist. It’s even better. See if you can keep that down.”

  “Nobody could keep that down.”

  “Try.”

  He tried, because it took
less energy than to argue. The mixture slithered down his throat with all the attraction of swallowing a frog, but it didn’t actually taste as repulsive as it looked, and the alcohol content burned pleasantly along his nerve endings. His stomach didn’t rebel. Not for the first time, Pitt decided that the alchemist probably did know what he was talking about, but that he would never tell him.

  “Good,” Forester said when he’d finished. “Now sleep.”

  He slept.

  This time, he knew where he was.

  The haze cleared with a rush of cold air, and he was standing on something like the battlements of his castle but darker and more jagged. The sea and the sky in the distance were metal gray, with only a faint glimmer of light on the horizon.

  “The younger William Pitt,” his enemy said. He stood on the edge of the battlements, upright and strong. “Younger in every respect, it would seem. Your father died pathetically early too, but he had twenty years on you. At your age he had only just married.”

  “Where are you?” Pitt asked. He knew better than to be drawn into a verbal battle. This wasn’t the House of Commoners. There were no victories to be had in debate.

  “Almost there. I should reach the coast before you do, especially if you keep having to stop like this. No matter, though. I’ll wait for you. I thought the agreement was that you would come alone.”

  “I never said so. I said we would meet face-to-face, as in a duel. By modern regulations, one brings a second to a duel.”

  “You know very well that we aren’t having a modern duel. But no matter. I’ll concede you slipped that past me. I doubt Wilberforce can do much harm. That’s the only trick I’ll permit, though. If this is to work, you must abide by the terms of the code.”

  “And so must you. Remember that you aren’t to harm a single soul on English soil until the duel commences.”

  “I have no need to. I fed before I left. You don’t think I kill people for fun, do you?”

  “I honestly never gave a moment’s thought to what you do for fun. But if we’re agreed on the terms, then I don’t think we have anything further to discuss.”

  “Nothing that we can’t discuss in person, I concede. I look forward to our meeting.”

  The battlements faded. Nothing disturbed him after that, not even his dreams.

  It seemed far too short a time before he became dimly aware of a different hand on his shoulder and a familiar voice calling his name. He was very used to being woken, and usually woke quickly and cheerfully. Struggling out of sleep this time was one of the most difficult things he had ever done, and he had rescued Britain from national debt at twenty-five.

  It was Wilberforce who was shaking him this time.

  “I hate to disturb you when you’re so tired,” he said, and Pitt knew even through his haze of languor and weakness that this was true. It was probably more painful for his friend to wake him than it was for himself to be woken. “But if we don’t leave soon, we may miss the enemy entirely.”

  That provided him with a welcome shot of energy; feebly though it traveled through his wasted body, at least it allowed him to open his eyes and sit up. The room was dark now, with a lamp lit next to the couch.

  “We’d better leave soon, then,” he said.

  To his surprise, the few hours’ sleep had actually done what he’d claimed they would do, or the knowledge that the confrontation was finally upon them gave him a new strength of purpose. In any case, his stomach had kept down what he’d eaten and now felt much better, he was breathing comfortably, and he threw off the blanket somebody had put on him and got to his feet with almost as much ease as he had ever done.

  “You look better,” Wilberforce observed, with something like relief.

  “So do you,” Pitt returned.

  “I had a very good sleep myself,” he said. “It’s strange how after a while you just get tired of being worried.”

  “So you’re not worried anymore?”

  “Oh no,” Wilberforce said, but cheerfully. “I have my strength back now. I’m just as worried as I was before.”

  “Mr. Forester, could you please hit Wilberforce for me?” Pitt asked, turning to the Templar. “I’m not sure I’m quite strong enough yet to do it justice.”

  Forester, unsurprisingly, didn’t smile. “I’ll see that the carriage is ready,” he said. “I’m glad to see some improvement.”

  Pitt watched as the door closed behind the Templar. “I do love how invested he is in my well-being for the next few hours,” he said, “when if we’re successful and the threat has passed, he’s just as likely to have me killed as an illegal magician.”

  Wilberforce frowned. “Do you really think that’s likely?”

  “Dear God, please don’t tell me you can find space to worry about that too?”

  “Not imminently, I’ll admit, but I can save it for later. In all seriousness, I don’t believe he will. I think his faith has been shaken over the last few years.”

  “I don’t think he will either.” In truth, he thought it was unlikely to be necessary. The current elixir barely touched him anymore, and there would be no new one. But he wouldn’t say that, even to himself.

  “Did the enemy speak to you?” Wilberforce said, with some hesitation.

  Pitt nodded. “He’ll meet us there.”

  Wilberforce must have known that wasn’t all that had been said, but he didn’t inquire further. “You heard what Forester said,” he said instead. “The elixir would work for the enemy.”

  “He also said that offering it to him would be very dangerous. As far as Forester is concerned, he’s still a monster.”

  “You know he isn’t. He’s a human being. And… I do believe that if he can agree to terms of peace, it would be safer than fighting a duel that we may not win, it’s true, but you know it isn’t only that. I don’t want to kill another human being if there’s another way.”

  “It’s fortunate that it’s likely to fall to me and not you, then.” He smiled a little at Wilberforce’s expression. “I’m sorry. I do respect that, believe me. But the people he’s killed over the years were also human beings. Doesn’t he deserve punishment for them?”

  “I’m not here, in this house or on this earth, to be an instrument of punishment. I want to make things better, for as many as I can.”

  “I thought you and your friends at Clapham believed in justice.”

  “Justice is too close to punishment as far as I’m concerned. I believe in mercy.”

  “And how do you define that?”

  That, at least, he had no need to consider. He had spent most of his life thinking about it. “Forgiveness for those who deserve punishment.”

  “I’m not certain I can forgive so easily, in this case. But I do understand.” He thought for a while. “If you want to offer the enemy the elixir as a peaceful solution to this,” he said at last, “then I have no objection to it. Of course, if it could be made to work, it would be best for all concerned.”

  “Thank you,” Wilberforce said.

  “I’m afraid my main concern, though, has to be the safety of this country. Perhaps the enemy can be saved, or redeemed, or whatever language you want to use, but I can’t put that over other people’s lives.”

  “I’m not sure I could either, if it came to it.” He glanced at Pitt. “I wish you’d told me Forester had warned you away from this.”

  “Challenging the last living pure vampire to a duel of magic?” Pitt said. “He would be a terrible alchemist to recommend that to a patient. He did agree it was the best course of action.”

  “Because if you can’t win, he doesn’t care if you die. He doesn’t care if we both die. I do.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry. Believe me, I wouldn’t take this risk if I truly believed there was any other way. I hope you don’t regret coming with me.”

  “No,” Wilberforce said. “I could never regret that. And I don’t necessarily put faith in doctors either. Mine told me I would die twenty years ago. I didn’t l
isten.”

  “I think that was meant more as a prediction than a recommendation, though I’m grateful for your independence of thought.”

  A smile flickered. “Just… Are you strong enough for this? Honestly.”

  “I swear I am,” Pitt said, matching his seriousness. And it was true. He had always been strong enough when he had to be.

  Wilberforce nodded. “I believe you.”

  The crunch of the coach wheels on the path came through the open window. The breeze, however faintly, carried a hint of the sea. In a few hours they would be at Walmer.

  At Sea

  January 1806

  It’s turning,” Hester said. Her eyes had been fixed on the dragon for the last few hours, as the sun had sunk below the horizon and it had grown difficult to see.

  Fina’s own attention had wandered, partly because she found it easier to look through the eyes of the lookout, partly because since her journey from Saint-Domingue to London the rocking of a ship tended to lull her into drowsiness. At the sound of Hester’s voice, she sat bolt upright. The dragon was indeed wheeling toward them, a shadow against the stars.

  The rest of the crew had noticed it as well: a murmur went up from the deck.

  “Dear God,” Hardy whispered from beside them. His gaze darted toward Fina quickly. “If you can stop it, Fina, I think it needs to be now.”

  She nodded. Her heart was hammering.

  “And if you can’t stop it,” Kate added grimly, “then it’s over. There’s nothing we can do. It can burn us where we float, and there’s not a bloody thing we can do to stop it. Cannons don’t fire upward, and rifles won’t make a dent in it.”

  “This is it, isn’t it?” Hester said. “This is what the invasion was waiting for. If they had reached the Channel with that thing above them, they would have taken England with barely a shot fired.”

  Kate’s mouth settled into a firm, determined line. “I was wrong just now. There’s one thing I can do. It’s still a flying creature, whatever else it is, and I control the wind. I’ll do what I can to keep it from us. But the ship can’t take very much of a storm in this condition, and it can’t take the dragon at all. So please, Fina, do it quickly.”