Four Summoner’s Tales

by Kelley Armstrong, Christopher Golden, David Liss

  Should the situation descend to physical violence, I had no doubt that I would be bested, but I would not allow others to determine the manner in which events unfolded. I made those determinations for myself. There would be no violence but upon my terms. These men would leave, and have gained nothing for their efforts.

  “You’re January?” Sir Albert said without ceremony.

  “I am Mister Reginald January,” I agreed. “Who addresses me?”

  He walked over to my decanter of wine and casually knocked it over, allowing it to spill upon my very expensive Levantine rug. The stain spread out like the creeping fog. “Don’t assume airs with me. You know damn well who addresses you. I may owe you a debt of thanks for bringing me back from death, but you never intended it as a favor. And you are no gentleman, despite what your stolen money suggests. I know precisely what you are, for my whore of a wife told me.”

  “One moment,” I said. “You shall not insult Lady Caroline.”

  The brutish companion stepped forward and, before I had time to react, struck me across the face. I reeled backward, wine goblet flying from my hand. My head struck a painting upon the wall, tearing the canvas. The portrait did not dislodge, but I slid down, feeling as though I might lose consciousness or vomit, or perhaps both. It was not a good showing.

  “This is Hubert,” Sir Albert said, gesturing toward the brute.

  “A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” said Hubert as he unbuttoned his breeches and began to piss upon my divan.

  While Hubert indulged in a long and forceful urination, waving his penis up and down to create a dramatic arc, Sir Albert proceeded with his discourse.

  “I am being gentle with you thus far,” he said, “because I wish you to consider my terms. I will possess the means of raising the dead from you. You will provide me with this knowledge, and then you will flee. I prefer you flee the kingdom entirely, for if I receive word of any necromancy in England, I shall be forced to respond as the threat warrants. Perhaps you house the means to bring yourself back, and killing a man who can raise the dead suggests its own set of difficulties, does it not, Hubert?”

  Hubert was still pissing. “It presents a bit of a dilemma, Sir Albert.”

  “Indeed it does,” Sir Albert agreed. He scratched his chin thoughtfully, as though considering the matter for the first time, though this presentation smelled to me of the lamp. “It is a curious question, do you not think? How can I sufficiently threaten a man who has no fear of death?” He snapped his fingers and grinned, as though an idea had just struck him. “I have it. What think you of this, January? If you do not vanish from the kingdom, I shall cut off your hands and feet. And, for good measure, I shall tear out your tongue. Yes, that does sound quite good. It should certainly keep the necromancy to a minimum, I should think. A man who cannot speak or gesture or hold anything cannot raise the dead, I suspect. It should be a pleasure to watch him try at any rate. But I doubt he would. A man maimed in the most terrible way, rendered a prisoner within his own body, I imagine he would give up on life entirely.”

  Hubert, who had finally emptied what I could only presume to be the world’s most capacious bladder, had tucked away his unwelcome organ and was in the process of buttoning his breeches. “But such a man could not look after himself, Sir Albert. Surely he would die, and you would have accomplished nothing.”

  “Right you are, Hubert.” Sir Albert looked at me. “He’s cleverer than you thought, isn’t he?”

  Looking at the piss stain upon my divan, I could not but reflect that I did not share Sir Albert’s opinion, but I chose to keep that fact in reserve.

  Sir Albert continued. “We must then keep Mr. January alive. Here’s the very thing. I shall have him transported to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in his incapacitated condition, where I shall pay to have him kept alive for as long as can be effected. What think you of my solution, Hubert?”

  “Very elegant, sir,” Hubert said as he picked his teeth with his thumbnail.

  “And I would, from time to time, pay him a visit, to remind him who had done him this terrible service and who was committed to keeping him alive and in a state of utter misery and sorrow for as long as human ingenuity could contrive. Is that not an eloquent punishment?”

  “It is like a poem built of flesh, Sir Albert.”

  Sir Albert smiled at me. “You were once a penniless rogue, and because I am, at heart, generous, I offer to you the opportunity to return to that existence. The alternative, such as I have set before you, is a grim one. What say you?”

  “You must count your blessings to receive such a proposal,” Hubert offered, helpful fellow that he was. “I’ve heard him be less generous with them what he didn’t like. You want my opinion, dying and coming back made him a bit sentimental.”

  “We all mellow with age, Hubert,” Sir Albert said.

  “Very wisely observed, Sir Albert,” said Hubert. “Time was, I’d have taken a shit on that divan.”

  Lying upon the floor of my own house, my head aching, and threatened with violence beyond measure, I was not entirely certain what I could say. I was determined not to let Sir Albert have what he wished. I did not want to lose the book and its power to generate money and comfort. I also did not want to allow its power to fall into the hands of a rogue like Sir Albert, a bad man made worse by my very own machinations. I cared little if the Stuarts or the Hanoverians ruled the kingdom—the poor would remain poor and the rich would remain rich. I cared little if Whigs and Tories traded places at the table of power, for they were all one to me. What I cared about was not letting Sir Albert win.

  “Now, tell me your secret,” said Sir Albert.

  “I cannot.” The words tumbled out of me. “You see, there is a book—a magic book. It is how I learned my method, and only the owner of the book can affect the revival of the dead.”

  “A magic book, indeed. That sounds like a lot of hokum to me,” he answered.

  “I did raise you from the dead,” I said, trying to sound both reasonable and sincere. “That also sounds like hokum.”

  Sir Albert allowed the point, but it did not cheer him. “Then give me the book!” he cried.

  “I don’t have it,” I told him. “I would be a fool to keep such a thing upon my person.” It was, in fact, in my waistcoat pocket at that very moment, but there was no reason to let him know such a thing.

  “Then where is it?” said the increasingly impatient baronet.

  “I don’t know,” I sputtered. My nose began to run, and tears ran down my cheeks. “Please don’t cut off my hands and feet! I swear to you I don’t know!” It was a good performance, if I may be my own critic. The fact that I was, in truth, quite frightened added to the verisimilitude, but I do not want the reader to think I had given way to panic and despair. I always have a plan. Or at least I often do, and this was one of those occasions when I nearly did. I was, in fact, working on a plan, and I was determined that it would be a good one.

  Hubert took a step toward me and I raised my hand in protest. My thinking was rapid and erratic, but I believed I could come up with something if no one struck me again for a few moments or pissed on any of my furnishings. Such things make it so very hard to concentrate. “Once your return from the beyond became so well circulated a story . . . I feared someone would find me and demand my secrets, but I was determined to protect the book. The only solution was to keep it where even I could not get it. I . . . I gave it to a friend, who was told to give it to a friend, who was told to hide it.” I hoped this many layers of obscurity would dissuade them from seeking out these friends themselves. “I can get the book, but I need a day. Perhaps two.”

  Hubert stepped toward me again and I pressed myself against the wall, feigning more fear than I felt. Growing up with my father had given me a certain indifference to physical pain. I did not care for it, but I knew a few blows about the head would not do me much harm.

  “All right! One day, then!” I said, thrusting out my hands defensively. �
��I will bring it to you by tomorrow evening.”

  “Very well, then. See that you do,” said Sir Albert, sounding a little bit placated.

  Hubert punctuated this command by kicking me in the side twice, but as I said, this did not trouble me overmuch.

  Once my two guests departed, I pulled myself to my feet and called for my man, demanding a fresh glass of wine and some clean clothes. After a refreshing drink and a change of wardrobe, it was time for me to put my plan into effect. If Sir Albert wanted the book not to fall into the hands of his political enemies, then that was precisely where it would go.

  * * *

  I hired a coach and set out to Kensington Palace without further delay. We crossed at Westminster Bridge and made our way through the dark at St. George’s Fields at night until I was at last outside the gates of the queen’s residence. The great red brick palace stood on the other side of those iron rails and across a few hundred yards of garden illuminated by moon and torchlight. Within those walls I would find Anne herself, or someone very near to her, who would offer me protection and provide to Sir Albert the punishment he deserved.

  It was a curious thing, as I gazed across the grounds to the palace. Therein was the queen of England, surrounded by some of the most powerful and influential people in the kingdom. All of them desperately wanted to see me, and I had the power to alter the nation, not simply today, but for all time. In my hands was the means to preserve a moribund dynasty, and while I had been uncertain if I should use that power, now Sir Albert had driven me to my destiny. Just as my desire for vengeance had led me to return him to life, now that same desire would lead me to thwart his plans. I rather liked the symmetry of it.

  Content with my sense of importance in the unfolding of global events, I approached the cluster of perhaps a dozen palace guards, who stood eyeing me with bored hostility.

  “Good evening,” I said to the guards. “I should like an audience with Her Majesty, Queen Anne.”

  Only one of these men turned to look at me with slow and reptilian contempt. “Is that so?”

  “I understand that you must not be in the habit of admitting anyone who wishes, but the queen has sent for me.”

  The guard held out his hand and twitched anxiously the fingers of his studded leather glove. “Let’s see it.”

  “I have no formal invitation, for she did not know my name. I am the necromancer for whom she has called, and now I arrive to offer my services to Her Most Royal Majesty and the benighted house of Stuart.” I placed my fingertips gently to my chest and bowed.

  The guards burst out in guffaws. “We’ve had a score of you lot already today,” one of them replied.

  I stepped forward, rising to my full height, thrusting forth my chin, and locking eyes with the saucy fellow who had addressed me so. He would know by the steadiness of my voice, by the authority of my bearing, that I was not a man to be sent off like a peddler with a pie cart. “I care nothing for your charlatans and imposters. I say I am the necromancer.”

  He deigned to blink in my direction. “Be off, or you’ll be a necromancer in chains.”

  I laughed the laugh of the aggrieved and tolerant, and I tried not to allow my authority to deflate. “Certainly I understand that you have been troubled with fools and madmen who claim they can do what I can, but I assure you I am the true necromancer, and the queen will wish to see me.”

  “And I said be off!” the guard snarled.

  “Look, if I could but find a dead bird or rat, I can assure you—” I stopped talking because the guards were now drawing their swords and stepping forward. Apparently they had already taken their fill of men who claimed to do what I could, in fact, do. No amount of persuasion on my part was going to gain me entrance. I thought to ask how the true necromancer could ever hope to see the queen if they behaved thus, but I chose not to press my point, as the value of a Pyrrhic victory enjoyed from prison struck me as minimal. I therefore retreated to my hired coach and headed home, wondering how I could possibly gain the protection I desired before I was due to surrender the book to Sir Albert.

  Once in my house, I called for more wine and retired to my parlor, from which the divan had been removed. I sat on a chair before the fire, only a few feet away from where Sir Albert’s tough had knocked me against the wall, and there fell asleep.

  Perhaps a few hours later, my serving man hurried into the room to inform me that the house, to his regret, was very much ablaze. A quick sniff of the air revealed the presence of smoke, and a peek down the hallway displayed a terrifying wall of flames. Having no choice but to concur with James’s analysis, I fled, very much hoping that the rest of the staff was able to do the same. Anyone burned to death, I decided, I would do the kindness of reviving. It seemed to me a safer course than running about the house looking for kitchen maids huddled in corners.

  * * *

  A quarter hour later, I stood in the distance, watching neighbors and volunteers pour water upon my house. I’d had the good sense to keep the book on my person, and so it was never in more danger than was I, but I had little more reason to rejoice. My house was in ruins, a charred shell. No doubt Sir Albert knew where I had stored my money, and he would have effected plans to make it impossible that I should retrieve it. I was now backed into a corner, and if I were to survive this ordeal intact, I would have no choice but to deliver ownership of the book to Sir Albert. I would have to set aside my need to win, my desire for revenge, and capitulate. As Sir Albert had observed, I had been a penniless rogue before, and no doubt I could be one again. Indeed, I could see myself, in my mind’s eye, only a few days or weeks hence, riding upon a mail carriage to some nameless inn, paying forth my last few coins for a room and a chance to swindle or cheat or trick or bed some stranger out of his or her small purse.

  “No,” I said aloud. I would not do it. I would not surrender. I would be maimed and defeated before I would hand him that victory, but how I would thwart him, I could not say. If I could not simply enter Kensington Palace, I would need to find a sponsor. A visit to the House of Lords, perhaps, might be the first step to gaining an audience with a sympathetic and connected Tory. It was a wise course but a slow one. It would no doubt take days, at the very least, to find and convince the right person to introduce me to the queen. I only had hours, and I could not think how best to use them.

  As I stood there, considering my options, a boy approached me, letter in hand. “Is you January?” he asked.

  “I is,” I assured him, snatching the letter out of his hand.

  It was from Sir Albert. He wrote in threatening and somewhat colorful language, but his point was succinct. He had taken the precaution of having me watched, and so he knew about my abortive venture to Kensington. And now, for my perfidy, there would be consequences. My house, I already knew, was destroyed, but that was not the whole of my punishment. Lady Caroline was dead. He had, in response to my double dealing, taken her life, strangled her while she struggled beneath his grip in wide-eyed terror. However, as I was the necromancer, there was no need that her death should be a permanent condition. If I were to bring him the means of revival, he would allow me to return her to life before relieving me of my abilities.

  I stared at the words on the page, illuminated by the light of my burning house, and I felt rage and sorrow and pathetic self-pity. I had been lazy and sloppy. I had treated my power lightly and not considered its consequences. I had been content with a life of leisure while, all around me, my enemies had planned and concocted stratagems. I was, in short, outmatched and out of time. I could not preserve my wealth, my power, and the woman I loved without having a stratagem of my own. I could not repay Sir Albert for his crimes unless I possessed the means to defeat him. I therefore turned my back on my ruined house and set off into the night. It was time I showed Sir Albert that I was not a man with whom to trifle. I had wrought these terrible things. Lady Caroline was dead because of me, and I swore then and there that I would make things right. I would do anything to revive
her and punish Sir Albert.

  Several hours later, spade in hand and covered with sweat in the cold night air, I stood over the open grave and performed the ritual. I held my breath, regretting my decision even while I understood that I had no choice. And then I watched while he sat up and looked about, confused.

  “Was I dead?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “And I ain’t no more.”

  I shook my head.

  “You done it?”

  I nodded again.

  With closed fist, my father struck me in the face, knocking me against the freshly dug earth of the grave from which I had rescued him.

  * * *

  My father remained sitting in his coffin, like a man roused from a refreshing nap. His clothes were in reasonably good shape, for he had not been in the ground overlong, and he was not excessively dirty. In point of fact, his odor was less offensive than on any occasion I could recall. His face had been restored, and the damage I’d done with the mason’s hammer was but a memory. He was back, only, like Sir Albert, more powerful and potent than ever.

  “Don’t go thinking you’re Jesus Christ,” he said. “I’m sure if you done it, a monkey could do it.” He pushed himself to his feet and began to bend and unbend his elbow. “It ain’t felt so good in years. Now, to celebrate my return to life, I aim to get myself good and drunk. Then I want a whore. And then we’ll deal with your problem.”

  I rubbed my jaw, which hurt, but nothing was broken and no teeth had been dislodged. I suppose such a blow might serve as the equivalent of a hug or a handshake for a normal man. “How could you know I had a problem? Have you been observing my activities from the next world?”

  “I don’t recall nothing of the next world, but if I’d had the ability to watch this one, I wouldn’t have wasted my time by looking at you. I know you have a problem, and I know it’s a big one, because otherwise you’d have left me in the ground. Whatever you’re up against, it has to be mighty scary for you to recruit your old pa to your side.”