A Study in Sorcery: A Lord Darcy Novel

by Michael Kurland

  “It needs be done in two parts, I would say, Master Sean,” Lord John said. “One, the vesting of the stones, and the next, the willing of the stones.”

  “Aye, that’s the way to go. Only it is certain that with the first we must give imposition, and with the second, direction, else we will have merely inarticulate tremors in the stone.”

  “That’s right, of course,” Lord John agreed.

  “Of course,” Lord Darcy murmured, but not loudly.

  “Do you remember that paper of Sir Percy Erdnase’s?” Master Sean asked. “The one that appeared in, I believe, October last’s Journal of the Angevin Sorcerers’ Guild?”

  “I must confess to being several months behind in my reading of the Journal,” Lord John said. “But wait—I do know the one you mean. What was the name of it now? Oh, yes: ‘The First Cause Considered as a Double-Folded Matrix.’ A fascinating treatment, indeed.”

  “Aye. Indeed. Sir Percy is a brilliant theoretician, as well as being one of the finest practitioners of the Thaumaturgic Arts. But, lad, do you remember the math?”

  “I think so,” Lord John said. He reached into his blue leather symbol-covered magician’s bag and pulled out a silver wand. Turning, he sketched some symbols on the empty air, with slender lines that etched a sharp blue light into the gloom of the temple. “Is that what you mean?”

  Master Sean took his wand out and rapidly filled in the air around Lord John’s symbols. His additions glowed purple, and were of a slightly thicker line than Lord John’s. “You’ve basically got it,” he said, “but you must fill in the terms on both sides in a matutinal progression. There—and there—and watch out for the dangling subscript here.”

  “Oh,” Lord John said, “of course!”

  “Of course,” Lord Darcy agreed quietly, staring at the air in front of them, which was full of twisting, colored worms.

  The two magicians worked out their formulas in the air for another ten minutes or so, and then, having agreed on the appropriate modus thaumaturgi, they opened their magical bags and began sorting out the required ingredients for their recipe. Slowly the glowing colored lines in the air faded out, and gloom once again was the prevailing color in the erstwhile temple of Huitsilopochtli.

  “It will be another few minutes, my lord,” Master Sean said, as he put three small bits of charcoal in his brass thurible and carefully opened a packet containing a finely divided powder that was the color of the patina on ancient bronze.

  “Call me when you’re ready,” Lord Darcy said, deciding that it was time to stretch his legs. He stood up and wandered outside to where the two men-at-arms were standing. For all the time that this two-magician spell would take, physically tapping, pushing, pulling, and probing each stone in the floor and walls would take much longer. This wasn’t some mansion with a false door concealed behind thin wooden paneling; each of those stones in the floor or the wall weighed upwards of a ton. Lord Darcy was a firm believer in letting modern magic take the drudgery out of his life.

  It was midafternoon, and a chill breeze had sprung up since morning. Lord Darcy pulled his cape around him and watched the whitecaps chasing each other across the bay. A trim-looking barque was heading out through the narrows, all sails set, ready to spend from two to three weeks as a small chip on a vast ocean, her crew completely cut off from the rest of humankind before she made port in either England or France.

  It was probable, Lord Darcy reflected, that within the next twenty years, as the steam engine was perfected and better spells were developed to improve its efficiency and power, the day of the sailing ship would gradually draw to a close. And that, he thought, would be a loss. The steam packet was a fine ship, for its purpose—which was crossing the ocean in one-third the time taken by the average sailing ship. But they were noisy, dirty things, and they didn’t make a man’s heart leap to see one in the distance, as that three-masted barque did, with its white sails all puffed out by the pursuing wind.

  Perhaps what the magicians should work on, Lord Darcy decided, was a method of controlling the wind, and not the ship. Everybody always talks about the weather, he thought, but nobody uses it properly.

  “We’re ready, my lord,” Master Sean called. “I will not swear to you that anything is going to happen, but you may want to be in here in case it does.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Lord Darcy declared, “for a royal wedding.” He went back into the dingy temple, where Master Sean and Lord John had erected a square-cornered brazier, which was emitting pink and white smoke in alternate bursts. “I’ll sit in the corner,” he said, “where I’ll be out of the way.”

  “Beg pardon, my lord,” Master Sean said, “But I wouldn’t sit anywhere, and I’d keep out of corners until we have finished this test. I mean, my lord, we don’t know what’s going to move, or shift, or open, when we do this. And we want to be sure that whatever it is, we can get out of its way while it does. If it does.”

  “I see your point, Master Sean,” Lord Darcy said, stepping carefully to the center of the floor, where the two magicians were standing. “What is it that may happen?”

  “Well, Your Lordship, the Law of First Causes states, in a general sort of way, that a first cause becomes primary, and can be reverted to with the lowest expenditure of energy. Now, what that means in this case is that when an object is used for something—something important—that use becomes its primary purpose. And therefore, when an object is magically induced to do something, what it will do first, and most easily, is its first cause.”

  “And how does that apply to this pile of stones, Master Sean?” Lord Darcy asked, waving his hand to encompass the surrounding temple.

  “Well, you see, my lord, for most of these stones their First Cause is just lying there, being part of a temple. But if, as we assume, some of these stones have a second function—that of being a secret doorway to the underlying pyramid—then, over the past few centuries, when the temple has not been used as a temple, but these stones have been used as an entrance, that has become their first cause.”

  “Or so we hope, my lord,” Lord John added.

  “Do you see?” Master Sean asked.

  “It is not as clear as it could be, Master Sean, but I fear it is as clear as it’s going to get,” Lord Darcy said. “You might as well get to it, and I’ll see what I see.”

  “Very good, my lord. This should be interesting. I hope we don’t have to put it under seal; I’d like to write it up for the Journal if we get any results.” Master Sean stooped down and lifted the brazier by its long brass chain. “I’ll take it around the area, Lord John, if you’d be good enough to hold the lines of power.”

  “I shall,” the young Mechicain sorcerer said, looking serious and intent. He spread his legs wide, lifted his arms, clenched his fists, and concentrated. The muscles in his shoulders and arms tensed.

  Master Sean went slowly around the room, waving the censer up and across at every step. The smoke billowed out through the holes in the top, now pink and now white, as Master Sean mumbled the words of power that would activate the spell.

  Life and the life processes are but an unimportant part of the whole that is the universe; intelligence and the designs of intelligence but a pattern drawn on sand. And yet that pattern which is life can pull into its weave much that is not of life, and give it a reason, a function, and a purpose that transcends the life that made it, in all physical measures of mass, distance, and duration.

  So is entropy thwarted in some small measure, in random pockets throughout the universe.

  * * * *

  The room rumbled as Master Sean moved. It seemed to be stirring itself, pulling itself together, assuming a purpose. Was it Lord Darcy’s imagination, or were the corners more square, the walls straighter, the floor more even? And the altar—didn’t it seem rounder, smoother; wasn’t there now the impress of a supine body, its arms and legs spread as it awaited the knife?

  The First Cause, Lord Darcy thought, staring at the waiting altar.
For centuries these stones have been nothing but the house of an evil god. And that is what they remember. But what does a stone know of good or evil?

  A deep murmur filled the room, and Lord Darcy had the eerie feeling that the stones were trying to talk. But none of those present knew the language of the stones, and whatever message they held remained locked in granite.

  Having made two circuits of the temple room, Master Sean stopped censing and brought the thurible back to its tripod in the middle of the floor. Then, standing opposite Lord John, he assumed an identical position, arms and legs spread, head up and staring at the ceiling. His muscles tensed.

  The rumbling of the stones of the temple sounded deeper and deeper until the sound was beyond human hearing, and Lord Darcy could feel it through the soles of his boots.

  But one stone—one section—one part of the right-hand wall was going up in tone as the others were going down. It grew shriller and shriller until the sound was almost painful, and then all at once it stopped.

  And the rumbling stopped.

  And all was still.

  Then, with an almost delicate, squeaking noise, the stone in the right-hand wall moved inward and swivelled in its own length, revealing a passage into the narrow alley between the two temples. For a moment there was a preternatural silence, and then, with a low grinding sound, one of the massive stones in the rear corner of the same wall pushed open in turn, disclosing a cut-out segment the size of two crouching men. The hole in the stone was framed with a heavy-looking iron hoop.

  Master Sean put the solid cover on the thurible, cutting off the smoke.

  Lord John stretched, and yawned, and shook his head from side to side to clear away the psychic strain. “We seem to have had a multiple reaction,” he said.

  Master Sean nodded. “I thought Sir Percy’s equations were valid,” he said. “A very interesting differentiation.”

  Lord Darcy looked from one of them to the other. “A very good job,” he said. “One of our mysteries is now explained: That hole in the wall shows how whoever was using this temple got in without disturbing the seal, the lock, or the spell on the door. Very well placed, too; anyone sliding into that passage between the temples would be invisible from below. Now let us discover whence that turnbuckle stone in the corner leads.” He went over to examine the stone. “Ingenious,” he said. “Would we have found it without the aid of your magical test? Quite possibly not.”

  Master Sean and Lord John joined him in staring at the hole-in-a-stone. “The whole stone must be on a pivot,” Lord John said. “And the balance must be perfect; a piece of granite this size must weigh over a ton, even with that hole carved out of it.” He reached his hand out and pushed the stone slightly.

  “Careful, my lord,” Master Sean said. “There may be more to it than that.”

  Master Sean raised the silver ankh that hung from a heavy chain around his neck and held it before him in the stone cavity. The closed circle atop the crux ansata flickered slightly when held in one position.

  “I suspected so,” Master Sean said. “Wait a second.” He looked around for his staff and then went to retrieve it from where he had left it by the door. “Watch this,” he said, thrusting the staff into the cavity in the stone.

  Nothing happened.

  “Hmm,” Master Sean said. “More subtle than I thought.” He took a small, sharp knife from his pocket and, with a quick gesture, pricked his thumb, allowing a few drops of blood to fall on the head of his staff. Then he once again inserted the staff into the iron-rimmed cavity.

  There was a sudden flash, and a sudden crash. A thin iron bar had whipped at waist-height across the cavity and smashed into the far side, just missing the staff. Instantly it retreated into the niche in the iron band that had concealed it.

  Master Sean wrapped a bit of clean cotton gauze around his thumb and tied it in place. “Can’t be too careful with an open cut, with some of the substances I use,” he said.

  Lord John examined the man-trap. “Tuned to human blood, do you suppose, Master Sean?”

  “Aye,” Master Sean replied. “With a very specific Word of Power to make it harmless. And that hoop, and its associated spell, are recent, too—and Angevin. They are neither ancient nor Azteque; I’ll swear to that! Since we have not the hours to spend searching for the word, I think we’ll just remove the spell. If you’d give me a moment of your time, and a modicum of your skill, my lord—”

  ”I am at your command, Master,” Lord John said.

  Together, with smoking thurible and waving wand, they went to work. Four minutes later Master Sean was capping his thurible and setting it aside. “As harmless now as a newborn babe,” he said. “Thank you, my lord.”

  “So the hoop is an Angevin addition to the ancient Azteque stone, eh?” Lord Darcy said. “This case commences to increase in interest. Are there any more little tricks concealed in this stone, Master Sean?” he asked, looking with respect at the no-longer-concealed entrance to the interior of the pyramid.

  “I think we’d best proceed with caution, my lord,” the tubby sorcerer replied.

  “Well then,” Lord Darcy said, “we shall. Master Sean, you and I will enter this secret passage—I assume that this device leads to a secret passage—while you, Lord John, wait here in case of trouble.”

  Lord John Quetzal looked for a second as though he were going to argue, but it passed. Instead he said, “How will I know if you’re in trouble? The stone walls will muffle any sound.”

  “True,” Lord Darcy said.

  Master Sean turned and rummaged through his carpetbag for a minute. “Here,” he said, handing a small circular disk to Lord John. “One of a pair of tuned disks. I will keep the other in my pocket. If we need help, I’ll whistle into it, and you put yours to your ear when you hear the whistle.”

  “Ingenious, Master Sean,” Lord John said, turning the small disk over in his hand. “A sort of portable teleson, is it? But it needs no wires.”

  “The same principle, with a few changes,” Master Sean said. “Good for a few hundred yards without wires. It will work through anything, except, of course—like the teleson itself—running water.”

  “Clever,” Lord Darcy said, looking at the device in Lord John’s hand. “What will modern magic think of next?”

  Master Sean smiled almost shyly. “It’s my own design,” he said.

  “So I had assumed, my friend,” Lord Darcy told him. “You should apply to the Patent Steward for a Royal Charter. It will prove to be a useful, as well as an ingenious, device. Well, shall we go onward?”

  They had to crouch to enter the iron-rimmed cutout. Lord Darcy pushed against the right-hand wall, and slowly the huge rock swiveled to enclose them within the wall. “Ha!” Lord Darcy called. “There are steps here, under the stone. Careful, Master Sean! I will be descending in front of you. Here, wait a second—” Lord Darcy pulled from his pocket a device that was one of the secrets of the Angevin Secret Service.

  A thin tube, containing a series of zinc-copper couples that provided a source of power which was still not fully understood, the device heated a steel wire to true white-heat; hot enough to vaporize the wire in an instant if it were not protected. But the wire was under the protection of a spell that passivated it, causing it to glow fiercely with its white light and yet not be consumed. Behind the wire, a parabolic reflector cast the light into a beam, making the device similar to—although brighter and much smaller and more convenient than—the familiar dark lantern. At the flick of Lord Darcy’s thumb, and only his thumb—as the device was tuned to him—Lord Darcy had the light of hundreds of candles at his command.

  He thumbed the button, and the beam of light sprang into existence. Pointing it down the steps, he went cautiously ahead, feeling his way carefully with each step, keeping a wary eye on the walls and ceiling of this narrow, extremely steep stone staircase. Master Sean stayed close behind him, ankh in hand, muttering protective spells as they descended.

  The staircase t
urned after five yards, and then turned again, and again. At the end of the third turn, some thirty feet below the level of the temple, it opened into a large room.

  Lord Darcy shined the light around the room. It was hard to tell the actual size, because large pillars spaced about every six feet broke the room up visually into many small areas. Oil lamps hung from supports on each of the pillars, and additional lamps were mounted every ten feet along the walls.

  Lord Darcy took out his flint and steel, and Master Sean his fire-wand, and they went around the room, lighting the lamps.

  “There is good ventilation in here,” Lord Darcy commented, as another lamp flickered into light under his hand.

  “My lord, I think you’d better come over here,” Master Sean called. “I believe I have found the Prince’s cloak.”

  Lord Darcy hurried over to where Master Sean stood. There, stretched between two pillars, lay the wool cloak. On it was resting the body of a man. The sides of his head were shaved, leaving a stripe of hair down the center. He was dressed in the painted leather winter leggings of the local native tribes. From the waist up he was bare. There was a gaping hole in his chest where his heart had been.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “A Mohawk, I understand, Your Grace,” Lord Darcy said. “Tentative identification, based on his hair and garments. We still don’t know who he is, however. A messenger is being sent to the chief of the Mohawk tribe to have someone come down and identify him.”

  There were in His Grace of Arc’s private audience room; Lord Darcy, Master Sean O Lochlainn, and Lord John Quetzal. Once again they were seated across the large desk from the duke. His Grace was not pleased. “I trust this is not the start of an epidemic of ritual murders, my lord,” he said to Lord Darcy. “Perhaps we had better make Pyramid Island out of bounds for everyone except the coming Azteque party. Although, come to think of it, it has been pretty much out of bounds for the past century. With that avoidance spell on the pyramid, nobody has gone near the island all these years. After all, there is nothing on the island but the pyramid.”