You will recall that year was marked by many an inauspicious omen, so that throughout the drawn-out months of the dry season the wise prepared for ill fortune, and the foolish sought to perpetrate it.
This is how it started: I had been seated on an ornamental hill overlooking the demesne of my master, and pondering certain philosophical absolutes, when my master’s summons shattered my train of thought. I was transported in the blink of an eye into his audience chamber, a nine-sided doorless vessel of glass which was lit emerald by his radiance.
“Wu Tsan,” he said, “a most unwished-for occurrence has transpired. I am called to the demesne of Men Shen, the Blue Wizard.”
I was speechless. Rarely indeed would any of the great lords venture into the sanctum of another.
“The call has gone out to all of us,” he clarified. “Some fate has befallen Men Shen.”
My heart was all but stilled. The Blue Wizard, no less than my master, was one of the great lords. To even so much as inconvenience him would require a degree of power only possessed by his peers. The seven wizard lords had ruled in peace—if a quarrelsome and acrimonious peace—for many long centuries, but the spectre of war between them had always been present. Such a war would reshape the world, transform or obliterate millions, perhaps destroy all.
“Wu Tsan,” my master said, naming me once more. “Of my servants, you are noted for your open and enquiring mind. Today such qualities may find favour. Travel with me, and we shall see what has become of Men Shen.”
THEY WERE ALL present: the Green Wizard was the last to arrive. It is a testament to the splendour of the lords of our world that they held my attention, and not the shocking devastation of our surroundings.
Soo Mi the Red was attired in feathers wreathed in flames, beautiful and terrible. Amyat Pre the Golden bore about her broad body many hundredweights of precious metal in chains and amulets and mail. The Black Wizard Lu, squat and toadlike, wore festering rags and stank of swamp water, a stark contrast to the Ochre Wizard, whose name had been cut from her in an assassination attempt a thousand years before. She was slender as a pole, taller than anyone there by a head. Last, there was Sun Gong the White, androgynous, flesh gleaming softly, whose eyes were covered with smoked glass so that the fires of her/his gaze could not burn us.
Nobody spoke in the long moments after my master’s arrival. The great lords of the world were uncomfortable in the presence of those who could challenge them.
Around us was the demesne of the Blue Wizard. Some great force had torn it apart, so that blocks and scraps of its dense blue-black stone were scattered for miles around us. I could just make out the foundations of villages, like the stubs of rotten teeth. The toll amongst the peasantry must have been terrible. All too often, as the philosophers write, a slight against one great lord is written in the blood of thousands.
Lu the Black was already indicating the true reason for the summons. The deaths of peasants was a tragedy, but it would not have moved my master and his peers to gather here.
There was Men Shen the Blue Wizard, but blue no longer. His complexion and attire alike were granite grey, and he stood in an attitude of alarm, hands raised to perform his magic. Alas, that magic had not saved him. Here was not the man himself, but only an effigy. He had been turned to stone.
“So,” said the Red Wizard, her flames dancing higher. “At last someone has had their fill of peace. We knew it would come to this.”
“We knew no such thing,” said nameless Ochre. “And we do not know what has happened now.”
“What’s happened?” demanded Lu. “One of you has broken the peace! One of you has initiated a cowardly blow against Men Shen, striking him down in his very hall. One of you, in short, believes himself strong enough to rule the world alone.”
He looked on my master as he said this, and Ang Tze replied hotly, “One of us? Or you? For you were never a friend to Men Shen.”
“We have none of us ever been friends,” the White Wizard pronounced. “I regret that our truce has not held. I will return to my own demesne and prepare to defend the security of my holdings.” And he/she was gone in a scattering of light.
“Wait,” said Amyat Pre the Golden hurriedly. “This need not descend to war. We have all built much in these peaceful centuries. All will be lost and scattered if we fight.”
“Then let the malefactor confess,” the Red Wizard declared. “Let the guilty party be brought forth, and stripped of power. Or war there will be.”
WE TRAVELLED BACK to my master’s demesne. Ang Tze kept me by his side and I had never seen him more troubled.
“Wu Tsan, you have aided me in the past, in seeking hard-to-find truths,” he said to me.
I confirmed that it had been my pleasure.
“You have a singular source of information. You know the demon to which I refer.” Ang Tze pinched at the bridge of his nose, a sign of unhappiness. “If ever there was need of true knowledge, it is now. Go, conjure your familiar. Find out who struck down Men Shen, or the world may end in many-coloured fire.”
IT IS NO great matter for magicians to call up demons. Most summon soldiers or workers, winged steeds, or to gain knowledge of other realms beyond our own.
I believe I am the only magician who has called up a demon of thought: not one that can impart secrets of the unknown, but one that can examine the known, and order and interpret the details of everyday life. Of course, I am a scholar first and foremost, and not a practical magician. I have never sought to reshape the world, only to understand it.
I had called up this particular demon several times in the past, when my own perspicacity had proved unequal to whatever problem was facing me. Now, I judged, I required all its formidable powers of investigation.
I burned the requisite herbs, burdening the air of my chambers with the potent haze of ginseng, radiant lotus and coca leaf, and I drew out the sigils and the numerals that were its secret name. In a trance, I reached out into the gloomy and cramped netherworld that was the demon’s own demesne, that half- glimpsed place of enclosing walls, spaces crowded with too many bodies, air that was rank and malodorous with the smoke of chimneys.
And I named it. I called it through the boundaries between the worlds, opening the way. Sometimes I would have to try many times before it deigned to answer.
Not this time, though. This time I simply uttered, “Sherlock,” and it was there.
I REMEMBER WHEN I first summoned the Sherlock.
It was a trivial matter, but then I have always been a trivial man. There was unrest within oneof my lord’s villages and I was sent to quell it. Being no creature of force or violence, I instead sought to understand the cause, discovering it to be a matter of thefts from many of the people there: the disappearance of small items of sentimental value.
I summoned the Sherlock as an academic exercise. I had often wondered if it might be possible to conjure a demon of investigation. In many ways the goings-on of our own world at a mundane level are great mysteries. We are very well informed about the conditions of a hundred other worlds. We understand the underlying nature of the fabric of reality and how to reweave, stitch and cut it to our liking. The truth of how a farmer lost his shoe, or what lies behind a closed door: these are not fit subjects for magic. Magic is a distorting mirror. The one thing you cannot see in it is the truth.
So, after much experimentation, I successfully conjured the Sherlock for the first time. It appeared as a very pale, very tall man, its features as sharp and hooked as aneagle’s, wearing severe and drab clothes of an alien cloth and fashion. The scent of coca redoubled as it manifested, so that I thought that must be the native atmosphere of its home. The demon looked on me and my surroundings—so different from its gloomy netherworld home—with the wide eyes of a man gripped by a fever.
Some demons rail against captivity and service. Others wheedle and beg and bargain. The Sherlock was not like this. For a while I could not engage with it at all. It did not seem to credit me with any objective existence.
It is a humbling prospect, to have the demon you have summoned refuse to consent to your being. At last I fell to describing the puzzle that I was working on, and that caught the Sherlock’s interest. An abrupt and striking change came over it, lending an animation to its gaunt features. It asked me many questions, and I confess I could not answer most of them. Instead, the demon and I visited many places where the thefts had occurred, and it made enquiry of the terrified peasantry.
At first I thought my experiment was a failure. Although the Sherlock had shown a sharp and enquiring mind, as might be expected from a demon of its nature, it was unable to account for the thefts. Its failure frustrated it, and at last it confronted me, insisting that there must be some information hidden from it. “I cannot see any possible means by which this act has been accomplished,” it told me agitatedly, and I felt bitterly disappointed that I had nothing to show my master.
But then the demon went on, “Of course there must be some connection to the tin-trader who visited this place some months before, as every one of the victims confirms having dealt with her, and as the miniature animals that they purchased have been stolen along with their things of value. And yet the trader is long-departed, and unless there were some way for her geegaws to have come to life and accomplished the thefts themselves, I cannot see how her involvement is relevant. It is true that there are small marks and scratches on the shelves and altars where the valuables were on display, as of diminutive animal tracks. But all this is plainly impossible, so I discount it.”
I tried to explain to the Sherlock that these things were not impossible at all, and it eyed me sternly.
“Well then, hypothetically, that would be your solution,” it stated, “but they are impossible and so it cannot be.”
But it was. Even though it strained the credulity of a demon, it was.
THIS TIME, WHEN the Sherlock manifested, matters were different. Each time before, the creature had appeared before me gripped by the fevers of the coca leaf, solving my puzzles detachedly, as an academic exercise. Now, when I called, the Sherlock almost fell at my feet. It is not uncommon for demons to fight each other in their own worlds, but I had not expected it of this cerebral monster. However, its garments were torn and it was bruised and sodden. For a moment I thought it would be no use to me, and despaired of ever finding another demon of its capabilities. However, it lifted its head and fixed me with its crystal gaze.
“So,” it said, looking on me and my surroundings. “One last time I am amongst the illusory Chinamen. But I have taken nothing, and this is no phantasy of my idling mind. Is this some relapse in mylast moments, to spare me from the pain?”
“O demon, but this is reality, such as it is,” I told it politely.
It looked at me with a wintry smile. “Why, if I believed that, I would be mad indeed. I remember my previous visions well, and there was nothing in them but nonsense: a fantastical reimagining of my real cases transfigured under the influence of the cocaine I used to fend off the tedium of inaction.” And I saw the smile freeze and fade. “And yet here I am.”
It swayed suddenly, and I thought that it would fall. “Have you been making war upon other demons?” I asked it solicitously.
“You could say that,” it murmured, closing its steely eyes for a moment. It seemed only a shadow of the haughty creature I had previously conjured and made use of.
THE ADVENTURE OF the stolen heirlooms was too minor a matter to reach the ears of the Green Wizard, of course, but I next had cause to conjure the Sherlock when one of my master’s own servants met a suspicious demise. The deceased woman was a steward of one of Ang Tze’s retreats, a place where he often spent less guarded hours, and there was a concern her killer had gained secrets from her. As a junior magician in his service, I was tasked to find the truth. After bumbling about the retreat, questioning the other servants and getting nowhere, I despaired of solving the mystery on my own.
When the demon came, it was relaxed, with a sharp humour. It dismissed almost everything I told it, and informed me frankly that many things self-evident to me were impossible, up to and including my summoning of itself. Working with it was a belittling experience, but at the same time the eccentric keenness of its wits was unparalleled.
“If there was such a thing as this magic you describe, then simply discover the truth with a spell,” it suggested derisively. I was forced to explain that, of all magic’s many capabilities, the art is lamentably poor at uncovering mundane truth. Magic is a force drawn from the imagination. A man who scries for his future, or the deeds of his paramour, is more likely to see a scene drawn from his own suspicions than any objective reality.
The Sherlock found this deeply amusing, and remarked, “Yes, that is exactly as I would imagine the failings of sorcery to be, which only reinforces my certainty that all of this is a mere delusion. However, it is a delusion that offers me a conundrum and it so happens that my real existence is painfully devoid of any such at present, so let us solve this imaginary murder of yours.”
None of the other servants had seen anything, and the enchantments that kept the retreat spotless had removed any telltale clues, much to the Sherlock’s derision. The demon did raise an eyebrow when I explained that we could also interrogate the victim herself. I dutifully raised her ghost once more so that the Sherlock could hear her testimony: the story of a shadowy figure coalescing in the room with her, the icy fingers about her temples, the sense that understanding was being drawn from her. All these facts had filled me with a dread that I would have to report to the Green Wizard both that his secrets had been stolen, and that the culprits were unknown.
The Sherlock was undismayed, however. After questioning the ghost carefully, it informed me briskly that, whilst it had no wish to gain any understanding of witchcraft, it was clear on one thing: the account we had just heard was not that of the victim, but of the murderer itself! I was taken aback, but its logic was unassailable. The perspective of the ghost’s account had included various details the victim could not have observed.
Unmasked, the possessing demon within the corpse attacked us, but my defensive magics mastered it and I was able to deliver it to my master for deconstruction. Once again the assistance of the Sherlock had proved invaluable.
IN THE MATTER of the Blue Wizard, I was hard-pressed to focus the demon on the matter in hand. The idea that its surroundings might be as real—more real—than those it had hailed from became more and more oppressive to it. “This world of yours is madness,” it remarked, as I flew it to the ruin of Men Shen’s demesne in a chariot of bones. “How can anything be solved by deductive reasoning, in a world where every possibility is impossible?” Only reminders of its past successes would mollify it for a time, until a blackness of soul would arise in it again.
Still, the scene of devastation seemed to give it a fresh lease of enthusiasm, and I shadowed the demon about the great heap of broken stones, and stood before the petrified Blue Wizard, cringing from the expression that was Men Shen’s last legacy to the world.
The Sherlock quizzed me of what he called ‘suspects’ then, and so I explained to him that the statue had been one of the seven great wizard lords who ruled the known world. I set out the natures and characters of those who might have done the deed: Red, Ochre, White, Black and Golden. “One of these must have acted to destroy the Blue Wizard.”
“Unless it was your master.” The demon wagged a finger at me. “I do not know your insane and unreasonable magic, but from your description, not one of your great conjurors was a friend to this man. Your Green Wizard may just as easily be the perpetrator of this crime. Until eliminated by some logic of motive or opportunity, he remains a suspect. I would say means, also, but it is clear, by the madness of this place, that such means are commonplace. Is it really the case that your rulers sought to create stability by each of them possessing the power to annihilate the others, in the hope that mutual fear would keep them all in line? I cannot see such a system succeeding. Far better to d
isarm all, than go on building greater guns.” And, in response to my assertion that the system had served us well for millennia, it only pointed out, “Until now.”
And then it insisted that it would have to meet with my master.
MY RISE IN the hierarchy of my master’s household is not entirely uncoupled from my use of the Sherlock at times of need. It is common for a magician of my stature to come to rely on certain demons whose strengths and capabilities are known, but my relationship with the Sherlock has always been unusual. I have found it hard to remember, when it has been conjured into the world, which of us is master, and which servant. No other demon has dismissed our true world as nothing but a trick of its own mind.
By the fourth summoning it had experienced enough of my world and my ways to gain confidence in its methods despite its disdain for magic. “Your sorcery may be absurd,” it would tell me airily, “yet there is an internal logic to the madness, just as one often finds with even the most demented lunatics of the asylum. They are adrift from the world, and yet within their heads there is a consistency of delusion which renders them predictable. So it is with your magic and, given that it is the creation of the underused portions of my brain, I would expect no less.”
And then it would turn to the matter in hand —in that case, I was tracking a monstrous demon hound which some renegade had unleashed in my master’s demesne, and which seemed to give the Sherlock even more cause to believe that all he saw had its origin within his own drug-twisted memories. And of course he examined the spoor, questioned the witnesses, enumerated the suspects, and without any grasp of the principles of magic, he read the true conjuror of the demon hound as clearly as if the villain had signed his name in bold characters on the creature’s forehead.
IN BRINGING THE Sherlock before Ang Tze I was dreadfully afraid that I had overstepped my place. It was not for a mere demon, after all, to question one of the great mage-lords, and I anticipated the Sherlock’s condescending manner would see both it and myself banished to some dungeon plane for a thousand years. The Green Wizard is wise, however, and the Sherlock demonstrated a deftness that, whilst it fell short of proper deference, at least demonstrated that the creature was used to standing before the demon lords of its own world without disgracing itself.
Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets Page 17