The Master of Heathcrest Hall

by Galen Beckett

  “But what will you do with them?” Ivy asked. Perhaps it was absurd to voice the question. Why should he tell them anything? Yet he must have been too pleased with his plans to keep them to himself, for after a moment he did answer her.

  “I will bind the keystone and use it to open the arcane gate that lies hidden beneath this manor,” Gambrel said. “The gate was forged by the first magicians long ago, along with the keystone that enabled them to open and close it as they wished. Though they were far fewer in number, the magick of the first magicians was more powerful than that of the Ashen. So it is that, even now with Cerephus not yet at its closest, this gate can be opened and passed through.

  “The gate leads to Cerephus itself, to an ancient city upon that world. Once I reach Cerephus, I will present myself to the Ashen, and I will introduce myself as the architect of their triumph. You see, upon my advice, Lord Valhaine has used his army to lure all of Morden’s forces to various locations about Altania. It so happens that, in these same places, are other magickal gates. But unlike the gate beneath this house, these gates were not created by the first magicians. Rather, they were constructed by the Ashen during the time of the first war, and such is the design of their magick that they will awaken when Cerephus finally draws close enough—a thing it will do when the Grand Conjunction is complete.

  “When this occurs, these gates will open of their own accord, bridging the void between Altania and Cerephus. A horde of Ashen-slaves will pour through, and they will devour Morden’s army. Valhaine’s command over Altania will be complete—as is my command over him. At my bidding, he will rule Altania in the name of the Ashen. And since there is no nation other than Altania that has ever harbored both witches and magicians in its history, it means that no other nation can possibly stand against the Ashen. Their mastery of the world will be irrevocable.”

  Ivy wished she had not asked the question, or that he had not answered it. She was frozen in horror. That a single man could betray all of mankind to its doom was almost impossible to comprehend.

  Mr. Bennick shook his head. “And you truly believe, for this, you will be rewarded?”

  “I know I will be,” Gambrel said. “You see, in my studies, I have discovered secrets of their world. There are magicks there which even the Ashen themselves have forgotten, and which I can turn against them. They will have no choice but to give me what I ask for—one of the Principalities to rule as my own.”

  “Just a single city-state to be prince of?” Mr. Bennick said, raising an eyebrow. “What a modest request.”

  “You would mock me, but it is indeed modest in the scheme of all things. Yet the value of it will be incalculable. The rest of the world will be plunged into shadow—there is no way this can be avoided. But I will make my own city a haven of light: a place where art and music and science flourish. Not all of human knowledge and accomplishment need perish when the Ashen come. I can preserve it, as if in the most marvelous museum, to endure throughout time. Don’t you see? Without my actions, there would be no hope of saving anything at all. But because of me, our race and our civilization will endure.”

  “I understand,” Mr. Bennick said, his dark eyes hard. “You would willingly destroy nearly the whole of the world to save a tiny sliver of it for yourself. You are a savior indeed, of the most singular kind! But where are the other members of your arcane order? Are they not to share in your victory? Surely it is their triumph as well.”

  Gambrel’s disgust was evident in the curl of his lip. “On the contrary, they are weaklings and imbeciles who had to be whipped like cringing dogs and dragged upon their leashes to do what simple tasks they were given. I have come here alone because there is no other who deserves to share in this victory with me. Now, bring me the fragments of keystone.”

  “But you won’t be able to bind them together,” Mr. Bennick said. “Not without knowing the precise spell Lockwell used to sunder the keystone.”

  Gambrel laughed. “A spell which he set down in a book—being always the practical fellow—and which someone else kindly copied down for me.” He made a flick with the pistol. “Now put the pieces of the keystone on that table there. Do it, and I will ask the Ashen to show mercy, and slay you swiftly rather than force you to toil as their slaves.”

  “Now would be a good time to speak that rune, Lord Rafferdy,” Mr. Bennick advised. “I am certain that you can stop him before he fires.”

  Mr. Rafferdy drew a breath, only when he did speak, it was not words of magick. “No, it’s no use,” he said grimly. “He has us. We have to do as he says and give him the pieces of the keystone.”

  Both Ivy and Mr. Bennick stared at him.

  “Give him the two pieces that you have, Mr. Bennick,” Mr. Rafferdy continued. “And I will give him the piece which I removed from Mr. Lockwell.”

  Ivy could not breathe. What was Mr. Rafferdy thinking? After all, he did not have her father’s fragment; Mr. Bennick did.

  “Go on, Mr. Bennick. Do as I say. Give Mr. Gambrel two pieces of the keystone.”

  All at once Mr. Bennick nodded. “Of course,” he said, letting out a breath. “You are right, Mr. Rafferdy. Even you could not bind him so quickly as that.” The former magician reached into his pocket and drew out two fragments of stone. But just two. Slowly, he walked forward and set them down on an end table, then retreated.

  “Now the last piece, Lord Rafferdy,” Gambrel said. Sweat was pouring down his brow. His right hand had begun to shake as his ring threw off wild sparks. “Be swift about it. My finger grows weary on the trigger.”

  Slowly, Rafferdy drew something from his pocket. It was not a piece of rock, but rather a small cube hewn of glossy black stone and adorned with runes. He moved to put it on the table next to the two pieces of the keystone. It was, Ivy realized, a small box.

  “I put it in here, for safekeeping,” Mr. Rafferdy said, then retreated.

  “Get back now,” Gambrel said. “All of you. Farther. I want you safely out of reach of magick.”

  They retreated to the far end of the hall even as Gambrel approached the table. His right hand still strained toward Lady Shayde, who remained as still as a statue. With his left hand, he set down the pistol next to the onyx box. He touched the lid, then looked up.

  “If you think to trick me,” he said, “and if Lockwell’s fragment is not inside, I will have plenty of time to take up the pistol and shoot Lady Quent before you can come close enough to work a binding on me.”

  “I assure you, it is no trick,” Mr. Rafferdy said.

  “We shall see,” Gambrel said.

  And he opened the lid of the box.

  It was difficult to see clearly from across the long room, but it seemed to Ivy that a puff of black smoke issued from the box, curling upward. Gambrel frowned—

  —then his eyes went wide. He lurched back from the box, flinging his arms out beside him. His head tilted back, so that the cords of his neck all stood out in sharp relief, and his jaw gaped open in a silent shriek. His face went gray, and his cheeks sank inward. Dark lines snaked across his skin, like cracks upon the surface of a porcelain vase as it shattered. In mere moments he became a ghastly sight—a thing not unlike the Murghese mummies Ivy had once glimpsed behind glass in the Royal Altanian Museum.

  By then, Lady Shayde was already upon him, released from the spell of binding. Only there was nothing for her to do by then. Gambrel took one more staggering step, and one dusty exhalation escaped him with a sound almost like No.

  His purple ring flared once and went dim.

  Then his shriveled form toppled over, crumbling apart as it struck the floor into a heap of sticks and sand.

  IT WAS A MINUTE or more before any of them spoke. Nor did any of them move, except for Lady Shayde, who walked in a slow circle around the powdery remains of Gambrel, and then—apparently satisfied with what she saw—retreated to the edges of the room.

  At last Mr. Bennick cleared his throat. “I was counting on your ability to best Gambrel, Lord
Rafferdy. It was, I am aware, the most uncertain part of my plan. The better magician does not always win the duel, but I could think of no other way. And indeed, you have succeeded.” He raised an eyebrow. “Though I did not know you would do it in quite this manner.”

  Slowly, Ivy approached the heap of dust and gray velvet that had, moments ago, been Gambrel. “But what happened to him when he opened the box?”

  “The full brunt of the curse of Am-Anaru came upon him,” Mr. Rafferdy said behind her.

  She turned to regard him. “You mean the curse that befell the three Lords of Am-Anaru?”

  “The very same.”

  “But how?”

  “I had taken the curse from Lord Baydon and placed it in the box.”

  “Lord Baydon!” she exclaimed. “But how had the curse befallen him? He was never in Am-Anaru.”

  “No, he wasn’t. But as I said before, even a good man can do an awful thing if he is desperate enough.”

  With a composition of both fascination and horror, Ivy listened as Mr. Rafferdy explained how he had learned what Lord Marsdel had done—how he had taken fractions of the curse’s power from himself, Earl Rylend, and the elder Lord Rafferdy, and had placed them in the box. Then he had given the box to Lord Baydon, who had opened it, taking those portions of the curse’s power upon himself.

  It was an awful deed, the more so because it had played upon Lord Baydon’s good nature, and upon his regret at being unable to join the other three men in war. Fortunately, Mr. Rafferdy had discovered the box among his father’s things, and he had arrived at Farland Park in time to find Lord Baydon yet alive. He had extracted the curse from Lord Baydon, returning it to the onyx box.

  “Ever since then, I have felt the dreadful power of the curse straining to be free of the box,” Mr. Rafferdy said. He approached Gambrel’s remains. “And now it has.”

  Ivy shuddered. “But why did it operate with such swiftness upon him?”

  It was Mr. Bennick who answered. “I would imagine it is because the curse had worked for years within Lord Baydon, growing ever more noxious. It had done this gradually, so that his constitution could in some part acclimate to its effects. Even so, he had nearly expired from it. When Gambrel opened the box, the effects which the curse had wrought upon Lord Baydon over decades came upon Gambrel in mere moments. His physical form was not able to tolerate such a sudden and savage assault.”

  “But how is Lord Baydon now?” Ivy said, looking at Mr. Rafferdy.

  “I cannot say for certain, for I had to depart Farland Park immediately. Yet even within minutes of taking the curse from him, his breathing eased, and his color improved. I have hope he will yet have many years before him.” He looked at Mr. Bennick. “If any of us in this world do.”

  “That is within your and Lady Quent’s power to decide now,” the former magician said.

  Ivy turned away from the remnants of Mr. Gambrel. “But he has still won. Even if we do as my father wrote in the journal, the gates between our world and Cerephus will be open for a brief while at least. Surely that is long enough for many of the slaves of the Ashen to come through and wreak havoc upon Huntley Morden’s army. They will be decimated, and Lord Valhaine will still rule Altania.”

  To her great puzzlement, Mr. Rafferdy laughed. “No, Lord Valhaine won’t win, and it’s all due to Eldyn Garritt. Our dear, diffident friend has become both a rebel and a spy, can you imagine that? And because of his most courageous efforts, we now have a map which shows precisely where each of the arcane gates is located.”

  “That is marvelous!” Ivy exclaimed. “But how is that possible?”

  “The rebels Mr. Garritt was working with had come by a map of Altania on which five locations were marked. It seemed a great stroke of luck, for these locations were clearly the places Valhaine was sending his troops to make a final assault. The rebels forwarded the map to Morden’s generals so they could position their troops to meet Valhaine’s army. Only it’s clear it was not luck at all that the rebels obtained the map, but rather that they were meant to find it.”

  “How can you know this?”

  “I know because, when I met with Mr. Garritt’s compatriots, they showed me a copy of the map, and I saw at once that there were runes written next to each place marked on the map—including the rune which means gate in the language of magick. It can only mean that the purpose of the map was to lure Morden’s army to the various locations—”

  “—so that they would be near the gates when the Ashen came through!” Ivy gasped.

  “Just so,” Mr. Rafferdy said, nodding. “But the two armies aren’t the only ones making for the gates at present. I only hope there is time enough.”

  “My calculations are not perfect,” Mr. Bennick said. “But we are only to the third occlusion. It will be six hours I would guess, perhaps eight, before the Grand Conjunction reaches the final occlusion.”

  “That should be enough time,” Mr. Rafferdy said. “Barely.”

  Quickly, he described the plans which had been set in motion back in the city. With the aid of his black magician’s book, he had exchanged a flurry of messages with those members of his order who had escaped the city. As it turned out, four of them happened to be in locations which were not so very far from four of the gates—the farthest being less than fifty miles, a distance a cantering horse could easily cover in a matter of hours. The main obstacle would be passing through the front of the war, but the four magicians had been provided the necessary passwords and codes to approach Morden’s commanders. Which meant, at that very moment, they were racing toward the locations of the arcane gates in the company of rebel soldiers.

  “Are they going to destroy the gates?” Ivy said, breathless from the thrill of this news.

  “Not quite,” Mr. Rafferdy replied. “Rather, they are going to alter them. With their House rings as guides, and with the rebel soldiers to protect them, my colleagues should have scant trouble locating the gates once they reach the areas marked on Garritt’s map, for these are bound to radiate much arcane energy now that Cerephus draws near. And the rebel soldiers are prepared to excavate them, for they have no doubt been buried over the eons. Then, once the gates are exhumed, Trefnell, Canderhow, and the others will carve a new set of runes upon them.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “Do you recall the gate in the center of the Evengrove? How the arch had runes on each side so that it acted as a sort of doublelock?”

  Ivy nodded. “Yes, it led both to Tyberion and to the tomb of the Broken God. That was how Gambrel intended to get from Tyberion to the tomb.”

  “Precisely. Similarly, my colleagues will alter the gates they dig up with new runes so that each of them bridges to other destinations.”

  Mr. Bennick’s eyes were alight with curiosity. “And what destinations might those be?”

  Ivy could only admit that Mr. Rafferdy appeared a bit pleased with himself.

  “I examined a number of gates in the ancient way station on Arantus,” he said. “I found a number that opened into stands of Wyrdwood, and I copied the sequence of the runes upon each of them into my black book. My colleagues will inscribe these same sequences onto the gates they uncover.”

  And all at once, Ivy understood. “So when the Ashen come through the gates, they will not fall upon Morden’s army at all.”

  Mr. Rafferdy nodded. “Instead, the gates will whisk them to the corresponding doorways upon Arantus, and from there directly—”

  “—into the Wyrdwood,” she said in unison with him.

  It was marvelous and brilliant and daring. At that moment, Ivy’s only thought was to rush to him, throw her arms around him, and embrace him with all her might. Only before she could do so, a voice spoke—one that she seemed to hear with both her mind and her ears.

  “If any of those plans are to have meaning, you must first bind the keystone and descend to the gate beneath this house.”

  As one, they all turned to look at Lord Farrolbrook. Only it wa
sn’t Lord Farrolbrook anymore, not really. He must have been keeping his black mask somewhere in his frilled black costume, for it was before his face once more. The mask was wrought into a grimace of agony.

  “Who are you?” Ivy murmured, taking a step toward him. “Mr. Gambrel called you the Elder One. But who are you really?”

  Now, despite the expression of pain, the mask’s mouth twisted into something of a smile. “But don’t you know, Lady Quent? I have been trying to tell you that very thing for months now. Perhaps this will aid you.”

  With weak and trembling motions he removed his gloves. On his right hand was an ornate gold ring set with seven red gems. They caught some of the firelight, glinting brightly.

  And Ivy’s body went rigid. A pain passed through her—a sharp and awful rending. For months, piece by piece, she had been recalling more of the strange dream that had started coming to her at the same time as life had first taken root inside her.

  Now, gazing at that glittering red ring, she at last could recall the final moments of the dream: leaving the cave, and traveling across the land with the tall man who wore the wolf’s pelt across his shoulders. Moons passed, and her belly swelled. At last life had sprung forth from her, and she had cradled the infant in her arms, filled with joy.

  Only then joy became horror. The tall man’s body crumpled to the ground, lifeless. Even as it did, the infant boy in her arms opened his blue eyes—eyes that were far too ancient to be those of a child.

  Through you, I will truly live again, the man had said as they lay together in the cave.

  The man whose name was Myrrgon.

  And he had done just that.

  “You are the great magician Myrrgon!” Ivy cried. “Or rather, you are his father!”

  He made a dismissive gesture, and the red ring flashed; though it did so feebly, like a sputtering flame on a dying candle. “Father and son—it makes no difference. The two are one and the same in my case.”