A Study in Sorcery: A Lord Darcy Novel

by Michael Kurland

  When the dazzle was gone and their eyes had readjusted, Lord Darcy saw that the crystal container was now glowing of itself with a soft green light that seemed to come from somewhere inside it.

  Master Sean peered down at the crystal and turned it from side to side. “It appears to have worked, my lords,” he said. “The ball of wool is now synecdochically attracted to whatever larger woolen object it was shed from. You see how it presses against the, ah, south side of the crystal casque, no matter how I turn it.”

  “Then the mantle—if it is the mantle—is somewhere to the south of us?” Lord Darcy asked. “I apologize for asking the obvious, but I have learned in matters magical to always state what I think is happening, because it so often is not what is actually the case at all.”

  “This time, my lord, you are right,” Master Sean told him. “Although direction finding with the crystal casque is approximate until you get quite close to the, ah, object sought, I would say that the mantle is somewhere to our south.”

  “Well then, let us go in pursuit of our synecdochical reward,” Lord Darcy said. “I will have a couple of guardsmen come with us, as there is no way of knowing what we will find at our destination, wherever that may be. But I tell you, Master Sean; I am going to be grievously disappointed if our search leads us to a meadow, and it turns out that the absent landlord kept a sheep in that room for purposes of his own.”

  “Little fear of that, my lord,” Master Sean said. “These wool fragments have been washed, carded, and some of them were dyed red.”

  “Ah!” Lord Darcy said. “That is very reassuring. Let us be off, then, and ‘follow this road where ere it leads us, though it be to the ends of the earth’, as the poet said.”

  Lord Darcy pushed the door to the outer office open. “I hate to bother you, Chief Vincetti,” he called, “but I must borrow a brace of your armsmen, if you don’t mind. We’re going to take a little trip.”

  “Of course not, my lord,” the Plainclothes Chief Master at Arms called back. “I’ll have two of the finest waiting for you when you come out. For how long will you need them, my lord?”

  “I can’t say at the moment,” Lord Darcy replied. “Not very long, I trust. How far away do you suppose the end of the earth lies?”

  “My lord?”

  “Never mind, Chief Vincetti. I trust I shall not even keep your lads overnight. If it will be longer, I’ll notify you.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, my lord. I just wanted to know whether to tell them to bring a change of clothing.”

  “They will have to make do with the clothes they have,” Lord Darcy said. “We’ll be ready to go in a few moments. And, Chief, see that the men are armed with pistols in addition to their shortswords.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  Lord Darcy closed the door and turned back to his companions. There was a sparkle in his eye. “Are you packed up, Master Sean?” he asked. “Then let us be off. Somewhere to the south of us truth awaits!” He took his heavy cloak from the rack by the door and shrugged it over his shoulders.

  “You think finding this mantle will prove important, my lord?” Lord John asked.

  “Can you doubt it?” Lord Darcy replied. “Wherever we find it, and whatever we find with it, will increase our knowledge of the crime. So far we have been limited to discovering facts about the victim. I find myself drawn to the idea of the mantle’s importance as a moth is to a flame—as Master Sean’s crystal casque is to, we devoutly hope, the mantle itself.”

  They left the office and, with two men-at-arms quickstepping behind them, quit the Residence by the big front door and headed rapidly south along the Great Way. After about twenty minutes they were at the southern edge of town, just passing the Langert Street Ferry, which was pulling out as they went by. Fort St. Michael loomed ahead of them, growing steadily larger as they strode down the avenue.

  When they were about a mile from the fortress, Lord Darcy suddenly stopped. “Is it true,” he asked Master Sean, “that magic spells do not work over running water?”

  “Aye,” Master Sean said, stopping and looking up from his crystal casque.

  “Even this one?”

  “This one? Oh, I see what you mean. Well, my lord, this is a peculiar case. The spell won’t work over water, my lord. But the spell is merely used to sensitize the wool ball. The action of the sensitized ball is what we call a sympathetic reaction. It is not strictly magic, and it will work over great distances. Of course the water distorts the effect slightly, and in a random fashion—which is why it can’t be used in a device for communicating over water—but it doesn’t diminish it.”

  “So the cape might not be on Saytchem Island at all?”

  “That’s right, my lord.”

  “I thought so,” Lord Darcy said. He turned to Lord John. “I believe that we are going to have to get a boat. But we must play this out to be sure. Will you go back to the docks and ready one of the Coast Guard cutters for us? We shall return for it as soon as I verify that we have run out of island and Master Sean’s crystal is still pointing something approximating south.”

  “Of course, my lord,” Lord John said. “Why don’t I get the boat and have it swing around to the tip of the island to pick you up?”

  “Excellent!” Lord Darcy agreed.

  “Thank you, my lord,” Lord John said, and he lit out at almost a dead run toward the Coast Guard dock behind him.

  Lord Darcy and Master Sean continued on their way, following the urging of the woolen pill inside the crystal casque. They skirted Fort St. Michael, and were rewarded by seeing the little pellet still pressed up against the side of the casque, pushing firmly west of south, clearly pressing for a goal that was past the fortress, past the shoreline, and somewhere out into the great bay.

  “Well, my lord, what do you think?” Master Sean enquired as they stood on the stone wall at the southern tip of Saytchem Island and stared out at the choppy water.

  “I think the missing mantle is either on yon Pyramid Island, or on a boat heading toward the Southern Continent.”

  About twenty minutes later Lord John showed up in a New England Coast Guard steam launch under the command of his friend Leftenant Assawatan. The boat pulled up gingerly to the breakwater, and Lord Darcy and Master Sean jumped carefully aboard, followed by the two men-at-arms. “Lord Darcy!” Leftenant Assawatan called down to them from the craft’s small bridge, “Master Sean! Welcome aboard. I am at your disposal, gentlemen. Where to?”

  “Pyramid Island, I believe, if you’d be so good, Leftenant Assawatan,” Lord Darcy called back. “At least head that way until further notice.”

  “We’ll be there in twelve minutes, my lord!” Leftenant Assawatan called.

  The craft billowed steam and swiveled around. With a mighty clanking of its engine and swirling of its two axially mounted paddle wheels, it churned into the bay, gathering speed as it went.

  Lord Darcy went forward and stared at the approaching pyramid. It was as much a part of an alien culture, he realized, as if it had been made by giant ants, or people from another planet. What made it so? The pyramid shape was not unique to the Azteques or Mayans, certainly, although the Egyptian versions didn’t have stairs going up the sides, or temples at the top. But there was something about the squat and looming pile of stones in front of him that spoke of a consciousness which thought alien thoughts and sought alien goals. And indeed, Lord Darcy reflected, their goals were alien indeed. There was the game of tlachtli, for example; very much like football as played in the Angevin Empire, but played with a small, hard rubber ball that could easily cripple a player. Lord John Quetzal had described the championship games played in Tenochtitlan up until barely fifty years ago. The games were hard-fought, punishing exercises, with no quarter given and none asked. And, at the conclusion, the captain of the winning team would have his head ceremonially cut off and thrown down a well. The winning team.

  Had it been the captain of the losing team, it would have seemed harsh, cru
el and savage. But the winning team captain? There was something so grotesque and incomprehensible to Angevin thought in that action that it was upsetting to contemplate.

  Lord Darcy gave Master Sean a questioning glance as they approached the island, and Master Sean nodded. The ensorcelled pellet was, indeed, pointed at or around the pyramid. Somewhere on that island was Prince Ixequatle’s woolen mantle. Or what was left of it.

  The steam launch, in a display of mechanical virtuosity, swung around in a wide arc at the last second and backed up to the pier at Pyramid Island. Chief Master-at-Arms Karlus was running onto the pier, fastening his sword belt around his waist as the launch pulled up. “Your Lordship,” he said, drawing up to a position of attention and saluting sharply. “What an unexpected pleasure. I trust there’s nothing wrong?”

  Two sailors quickly fastened a boarding ramp in place, and Lord Darcy and his small contingent crossed onto the dock. “No problem, Chief,” Lord Darcy said. “We have a little more investigating to do, that’s all. Have there been any disturbances of any kind since last I was out here?”

  Chief Karlus shook his head. “Nary a thing, Your Lordship,” he said. “Not while I’ve been here, and none reported to me in my absences.”

  “You go back to New Borkum to sleep, do you?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “No, my lord,” Chief Karlus said. “We brought tents and bedrolls. A guard sloop brings hot meals once a day, and the men take two days off out of every ten, in rotation.”

  “I see,” Lord Darcy said. “Very dedicated and very efficient of you.” He looked around. “Where have you set up the tents?”

  “Oh, not on the island itself,” Chief Karlus said. “It didn’t seem right, somehow. And, besides, some of the men said they could never sleep with that great thing looming over them. I sort of feel that way myself, if it comes down to it.”

  “Where then?”

  Chief Karlus pointed to his right, over at the forested mainland. “Over there, my lord. It’s a lot closer than New Borkum,” he said. “No more than half a mile. We have a guard skiff, and there’s another boat we found on the other bank, which we’re using temporarily until the owner shows up to claim it. A small fisherman sort of rowboat. So, you might say, we have the makings of a fleet, my lord. There’s a clearing right opposite, and a road. Not much of a road, more of a track, but good enough for a man or a horse. The men can use it to return to camp on the night—or morning—before they go back on duty. It is only about a half-hour walk to the West Bank of the Langert Street Ferry.”

  “It sounds like you have the situation well in hand, Chief Karlus,” Lord Darcy said. “Keep up the good work. I trust it won’t go on much longer.”

  Master Sean, his crystal casque held before him, climbed slowly up the pyramid steps, closely followed by Lord Darcy and Lord John. The two conscripted men-at-arms came behind. Suddenly, quite close to the top, Master Sean stopped. “We’ve passed it,” he said. “What do you mean?” Lord Darcy asked. “It isn’t above us, my lord,” Master Sean explained. “It is now below us.”

  “Well, I’ll be—” Lord Darcy stamped on the step. “It’s in there! It’s in the pyramid!”

  “I would say so, my lord,” Master Sean agreed.

  “But I thought these things were solid,” Lord Darcy said. He turned to Lord John. “Aren’t these things solid?”

  “Not exactly, my lord,” Lord John replied.

  Lord Darcy turned and sat on the pyramid steps. “Just what—exactly—are they, then, my lord?”

  “As far as I know,” Lord John said, “and I am far from an expert on these matters—”

  ”You’re the closest thing to an expert we have available,” Lord Darcy said.

  “That’s true, my lord. Well, the Azteque calendar runs in a fifty-two-year cycle—”

  Lord Darcy leaned back on his elbows. Master Sean sat on a convenient stone ledge. They both prepared to listen. If Lord John wanted to start his explanation of the putative hollowness of the pyramid with a digression on the Azteque calendar, well, it would undoubtedly all tie in. “Go on, my lord,” Lord Darcy said.

  “The world, you see, is going to come to an end at the end of one of these cycles.”

  “Is it now, my lord?” Master Sean said.

  “So the Azteque religion believes. The only problem is, they don’t know which one. Earlier worlds, they believe, have ended at the completion of these cycles, and theirs is fated to as well. But it could be this cycle, or the next, or so on; they don’t know when.”

  “That must be a problem,” Lord Darcy said.

  “Indeed. So, at the end of each fifty-two-year cycle, the Azteques prepare for the end of the world. To show their gods that they are ready, they destroy all personal and public property.”

  “A pyramid, I take it, is public property,” Lord Darcy said.

  “That is so.”

  “But this pyramid has been standing here for some five hundred years,” Master Sean objected. “And I believe that many in Mechicoe are much older.”

  “That is certainly so, Master Sean,” Lord John said. “And there are two explanations for that. Both based on the fact that it’s quite difficult to destroy a pyramid.”

  “Aye, that’s so,” Master Sean said, looking around. “It would take quite a few tons of magically potentiated gunpowder to do this thing any major damage. And the Azteques do not have such things, praise the Lord. It must have taken them twenty years to build this, and it would take them another twenty to tear it down.”

  “It took closer to two hundred years to build this, I would imagine,” Lord John said.

  “How’s that?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “In spurts, of course, not continuously. You see, they would have started with a smaller pyramid, perhaps a fourth this size. Then, at the end of the cycle, they would have destroyed everything inside it—if it had an inner chamber—and anything in the temple atop it.”

  “To prepare for the End of the World,” Lord Darcy said.

  “That’s right, my lord. And then, when they were sure that the new cycle was starting properly, and that the world hadn’t ended, they would have filled up the old pyramid with rubble, and built a new one atop it, making the whole perhaps a third larger.”

  “I see,” Lord Darcy said. “And then, at the end of the next cycle—”

  ”The whole thing would have been repeated. So, finally, after three or four cycles, they would have had a giant pyramid, like this one, filled with rubble, with a temple or two on top.”

  “Why filled with rubble?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “Because the old rooms from the previous cycle were not to be reused. That would have meant that they hadn’t really been prepared for the end of the world, you see, if they were planning to reuse anything from the last cycle.”

  “Ah!” Lord Darcy said.

  “So, by tradition,” Lord John said, “as this is at least a three-cycle pyramid, it should be packed tight with rubble inside, with the only usable space left in the temples on top.”

  “And if someone desired to violate this tradition and clear away enough of the interior rubble to make some sort of hidey-hole,” Lord Darcy said, poking at the pyramid steps with his walking stick, “where would this person find access to accomplish this project?”

  “That I do not know, my lord,” Lord John said. “I believe that, traditionally, the entrance to the interior of the pyramid was concealed in the temple on top.”

  “Well, it’s a starting place,” Lord Darcy said, rising to his feet. “Come, let us investigate.”

  The temples looked as they had left them; indeed, they looked as though, were they left for another century, or a dozen centuries, they would not change. There was something eternal about their very emptiness; the deserted shells of the past, waiting for the future.

  “Let us take Huitsilopochtli’s former abode first,” Lord Darcy suggested, rubbing his hands together as he examined the front doors of the two temples. “I rather fancy that if t
here is any mischief afoot, he is involved.”

  “The missing garment is definitely below us now,” Master Sean said, manipulating the crystal case in his two hands. “Just a wee bit below us, I think.”

  Lord Darcy instructed the two men-at-arms to wait outside, prepared to come running if called, and not to be surprised at anything. Then he and the two master magicians entered the deserted temple of Huitsilopochtli and paused just inside the door. “The entrance is somewhere in the floor, I would imagine,” Lord Darcy said. “Although the walls are thick enough.”

  “The altar stone?” Lord John suggested. “Mind you, that is only a guess. The people who built this might have been of my race, but they were not of my persuasion. I do not have much of a feel for their actions.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to find it very easily,” Lord Darcy said. “After all, they’ve had centuries to figure out how to hide it.” He looked around at the blank gray stone. “Is there any way we can ‘magic’ this room? Some sort of spell that would make the hidden reveal itself—if you see what I mean?”

  Master Sean thought for a minute, staring into space, one hand on his hip and another to his lips, and then turned to Lord John. “Perhaps something could be done with the Law of First Causes. What say you?” he asked.

  “Umm,” Lord John said, taking a pose that unconsciously parodied Master Sean’s. “Aye! It might work. It just might at that. It depends on how strongly the purpose is committed into the stone, of course, but it sounds possible.”

  “The question is, which permutation will do the job,” Master Sean said, kneeling down and lightly running his fingers over the stone floor, as though to read with his fingertips the secrets hidden in the very texture of the stone.

  Lord Darcy went over to the low shelf that ran the length of one wall and sat down on it, leaning back against the wall and willing himself to completely relax. Starting from his toes and working upward, he let a wave of relaxation sweep over his body. There was nothing better he could do now; his two magicians were working for him, and to hurry a magician was no more profitable than to hurry the tides.