‘Will this... spell take effect straight away?’ Mrs. Amberny asked anxiously in a low voice. ‘How many times will we have to do this?’
‘It will only have to be done once,’ Pharaoh replied, setting up his portable altar and draping it with a dark cloth.
‘Just once?’
‘Trust me, Mrs. Amberny. I assure you I know what I’m doing.’ He laid out his magical tools on the altar and produced some self-igniting incense from a packet of silver foil. ‘I prefer to work naked, Mrs. Amberny, though you and Tavrian may wear robes if you prefer. You’ll find some in that bag over there. One of them is bound to fit you.’
Mrs. Amberny’s eyes went quite round as Pharaoh wriggled without affectation from his clothes to reveal a body that looked scrubbed and clean and which I knew would taste of salt. I led our hostess over to the bag. She looked at me once and her eyes said, ‘Such hair, such a face, such perfect flesh.’ Poor woman.
‘Remember, you wanted magic,’ I said.
She smiled vaguely and took the robe I put into her hands.
The sun had disappeared beneath the horizon of Esher Tantine. In the white room of Violet Way Villa, we stood within the circle of silver boxes and candle-light, Mrs. Amberny and myself clad in sombre black, Pharaoh white and naked as a laser. He turned on the machines and went to sing to each in turn. In the east, he sang of air, in the south, he sang of fire, in the west, water and in the north, earth.
‘Hear me, oh shining beings of the air...’
The machines sang back to him and began to emit a glowing blue-white radiance. Above each box hung a spectral five-pointed star sketched in beams of light, each the size of a man. They were connected by a trembling, glowing cord which formed the circle itself. The candle flames flickered and danced and a faint but rushing breeze brushed Mrs. Amberny’s red hair back from her face. She stared straight ahead, mouth open.
Pharaoh never needs a High Priestess because of the incredible control he has over his own polarities. When he needs to be female, he thinks ‘female’ and he is; it’s as simple as that. However, as a concession to Mrs. Amberny, and because she was paying us, once he’d cast the circle, he beckoned her to his side. She gingerly stepped forward, timorous as a woman half her age. Already, she was in love with him. He must find his attractiveness quite an inconvenience at times. From his lips feel beautiful poetry, which Mrs. Amberny repeated breathlessly at his side.
I closed my eyes and allowed myself the luxury of letting their words drift over me, drinking them in, helping to make them real. I doubted whether Mrs. Amberny could understand what we were asking for exactly, because I certainly didn’t. The invocation had a weird effect though; I felt quite light-headed. I also experienced a peculiar tickle in the back of my head, the sort that cannot be scratched. Pharaoh’s voice rose in timbre, Mrs. Amberny’s leaping gamely behind. Their words described the mystery of the universal fabric. For a while, I stood entranced, only half conscious.
A half-heard sound summoned me to open my eyes. The room seemed different, the atmosphere almost strained. Pharaoh threw back his head, and at that very moment the door to the room opened and slammed against the wall with a resounding crack.
Mrs. Amberny squeaked, distracted from the invocation. Pharaoh ignored it. I looked at the door. What I saw there removed the middle section of my courage with one easy slice. How? How the devil?
That she’d possessed the ingenuity to follow my trail was astounding enough, but why in this universe, did she want to? Surely no one could bear such a grudge that it was worth the time and money of interstellar travel. There in the doorway stood Lenora Sabling, looking as devilish and powerful as if Pharaoh had conjured her up himself. A brief panic turned my veins to wood. Had he? No, surely not. She was looking right at me, black eyes round and wild, black hair sticking up in a crazy halo, red lips smiling. In her hands she held a shiny black gun which was pointed right at me. I recognised it instantly as one from my collection of antique weapons; another thing I had lost in my flight from the sordid relationship.
‘Lenora!’ I said in surprise.
She did not appear to hear me or even notice me at that point, but walked forward a few paces, eyeing the glowing blue circle nervously.
Pharaoh had come out of his trance and was looking at her with interest. He did not appear to view this event as unexpected.
Mrs. Amberny had one hand to her throat, no doubt thinking that this was part of the spell.
Lenora turned around sluggishly and saw me. She lifted the gun and I instinctively put up my hands to shoulder height. ‘Tavrian Guilder,’ she said. ‘I’m going to kill you.’
‘Don’t be hysterical, Lenora,’ I said, trying to be reasonable.
‘Just a minute, young lady,’ Mrs. Amberny butted in. ‘You can’t kill him. He hasn’t finished his job yet.’
‘Be quiet!’ Lenora ordered. She looked drunk. Never in her life had she enjoyed such power, I’m sure. ‘Don’t look so scared, old woman. It’s not your blood I want, it’s his! Now Tavrian, perhaps you think this is a selfish gesture on my part. It isn’t. You are paid to give pleasure; that’s fine. The only problem is, you’re so mean, you can only give it when you are paid. Perhaps your work sickens you. Perhaps you find relaxation by giving pain; I don’t know. All I know is that you wrecked my life, destroyed my self-respect and broke my heart.’
‘Ah, you’ll overlook ruining your best carpet then.’
She wailed in an undignified manner and waved the gun dangerously.
‘All right, all right,’ I said, hands aloft once more. ‘Let me remind you, my dear, you have my hounds, my jewellery, my collections, my cars. Sell them. Then you’ll be able to buy a new self-image and a new carpet.’
Now she made an angry, spitting noise. ‘Vermin! Get on your knees. Go on: down! I want to see you grovel before you die. No one will ever be destroyed by you again. This is the end, Tavrian. Let your life, such as it is, flash before your eyes. See all those broken lives that have your name burned into the flesh.’
Naturally I would not kneel to her. Who did she think she was? I made a mental calculation about how much bullet damage I’d have to receive before death was inevitable and how much damage I could afford to get repaired afterwards. From the way her hands were shaking, I even doubted whether she could score a direct hit. I stepped forward slowly, intending to take the gun from her.
‘No!’ Pharaoh leapt upwards. ‘Don’t break the circle!’ he cried and went to throw himself against me.
I can only presume Lenora panicked. There was a shot and then, in an arc of blood, Pharaoh Hallender’s body flew backwards from my arms, hit the south pentacle and was swallowed in the blue light, disappearing with a short hiss and a curl of pale smoke. I stared aghast at the South. Of Pharaoh, all that remained was a streak of dark red upon the floor. Mrs. Amberny had gone utterly stiff with shock and said nothing. Lenora was looking round the room as if unsure of how she had got there or what she had done. She had also begun to cry. As I thought: she had no killer instinct. Heedless of whether I was breaking the circle or not, I charged through the ring of light and knocked the gun from her hands. She looked up at me, imploring, helpless.
‘Tavrian, Tavrian,’ she murmured.
It was a nice touch that she died with my name on her lips. I broke her neck.
Mrs. Amberny stood, drooping, within the circle. Now the ring of light spluttered and faded in places, pulses of power running through it. Mrs. Amberny was a ghost in its centre. She seemed dazed.
Now that the blood lust had been spent, I was reluctant to cross the glowing threshold again. I stared at the South, at the stripe of dark upon the marbeline floor. He was gone. He was really gone. For a while I sat on the floor, truly stunned. I’d been given a chance to make amends; Pharaoh had come to Asher Tantine at my summons. Now he was dead, and at the hands of another of my self-pitying ex-lovers. What a shitter. Why had I been cruel to Lenora and made her hate me so much? Why indeed had I ever s
educed Pharaoh’s sister Raifina all those years ago? Must I forever blight my own future with vomit-pools of my past?
Lenora was just a dark huddle on the floor behind me. The gun lay a few feet away, shining blue with reflected light. Mrs. Amberny didn’t move. The machines hummed and spat. Then a breath of night-air came into the room and a tall, dark figure was drifting past me, bowed and stumbling as if walking in its sleep. It paused, wagging its head from side to side and then passed through the blue light; the current surged and rippled as if it was water. Mrs. Amberny raised her head. I scrambled to my feet.
Matthew Breed was standing within the circle, facing her. In the vague light, I could see he appeared disorientated, frightened, confused. His clothing was dusty and runkled, his hair in disarray.
‘Mr.... Mr. Breed,’ Mrs. Amberny said. ‘What are you doing here?’ In an instant she had recovered all of her poise. Her voice came right from the back of her nose.
Matthew Breed shook his head. ‘I don’t know. At least...’ He looked around the room, seeing nothing. ‘Mrs. Amberny, I’ve been meaning to speak to you for some time. At least, I think I have. I’m a lonely man, Mrs. Amberny. I admire strength in a woman...’ He spoke as if reciting a set of well-rehearsed lines.
Mrs. Amberny was clearly aghast.
I just began to laugh. Pharaoh had found a solution all right and it would harm no one. Admittedly, it was rather more manipulative than he usually felt happy with, but it had worked. Now Matthew Breed was desperately, irretrievably, helplessly captivated by the allure of Mrs. Amberny. He loved her, would do anything for her, would worship at her feet until the day he died. The Church of Infant Jesus would mean nothing to him unless the woman he loved was by his side. Naturally, the woman he loved could then more or less dictate what form that church would take. Even in my shocked state, I couldn’t help thinking of holy whores, gospel nightclubs and religious holiday gambling events. Ingenious. Even though my face was wet with tears, I couldn’t help but laugh. Ingenious!
Order came home to Violet Way Villa. Mrs. Amberny discarded Pharaoh’s robe and smoothed her creaseless dress. She called for her manservant and murmured something into his ear, briefly waving a hand in the direction of Lenora Sabling’s remains. The manservant did not even change his expression of bland servility. He nodded and left the room, perhaps to find a spade. With a commanding hand, Mrs. Amberny led the confused Matthew Breed into another room. By the time he came to his senses he would have forgotten what he’d seen; the body, the blue light, the blood upon the floor.
I stood for a moment, staring at the fading circuit. Now only four balls of vague light glowed above each box as the resonance died. I would not touch the blood upon the floor. As I turned to leave the room, something tapped my shoulder. I looked back. Behind me was clustered a group of shining beings, tall and spectral, glowing with brilliant, shifting colours and emitting strange, half-familiar odours.
‘What about us?’ one of them said.
‘Excuse me? Who are you?’ I backed carefully towards the door.
‘You summoned us. Now we must be dismissed.’
‘And how do I do that exactly?
The elementals shrugged en masse. ‘We don’t know; that’s your job. But we can’t leave until we’re dismissed.’ I could tell they didn’t want to stay, but how do you dismiss an elemental? The only person who knew had disappeared in a vapour of his own ichor through the south quarter. Sighing, I pushed through the eerie throng and began turning off the machines. I didn’t know whether that would work, but even as I watched the creatures vanished with a slow, vibrating hiss. I went into the next room.
Mrs. Amberny didn’t want to discuss what had happened. She wrote me a banker’s order, gave me instructions on how to cash it at her bank in Violet Way, and then handed me four bags of crystals. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr. Guilder,’ she said, tight-lipped.
I wanted to smack her face. Pharaoh had died because of her. It made me sick. ‘What are these?’ I asked her, looking into the bags.
‘A fitting payment,’ she said dryly. ‘They are elemental stones, pyratitanite, aqualine, egrecite, cave-diamond. They’re worth a fortune. Your business seems risky, Mr. Guilder. If I were you, I’d use the revenue from these stones to retire. Here is the declaration certificate; you’ll need it to get them off Asher Tantine. It was... interesting doing business with you, Mr. Guilder.’
Thus, I was dismissed.
I went back to Hotel Evening and ordered a bottle of liquor to drink in my room. Lying in darkness, I thought about what had happened, glancing occasionally at the four bags of crystals sitting on the bedside table. Pharaoh Hallender was dead because of me; that fact was inescapable. There was no way I could blame Mrs. Amberny really. Now I would have to contact Raifina and tell her. She would be distraught, alone, in need of comfort. A slow, grin curled across my face. I leaned over to turn on the light and a cold hand gripped my wrist. From nowhere a sylph had materialised by my side. This was a creature of the element of air, tall and gaunt and robed in grey-blue. Its touch was icy, a breathless wind raised its long, tawny hair from its back. ‘You did not dismiss us, Tavrian Guilder,’ it said menacingly. ‘We are still here and we want to go home. You must dismiss us.’
‘How?’ I cried. ‘The witch who summoned you is dead! It’s nothing to do with me! Pester Mrs. Amberny instead.’
The sylph looked at my bedside table. ‘You have the crystals,’ it said.
‘Yes.’
It folded its arms. ‘They have the power to return us to our lovely realms. Give them to me and we may leave.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘We shall be with you always and we shall be very unhappy. Have you ever been in the company of an elemental who’s very unhappy?’
‘No, I can’t say I have.’
‘Not many people can. They don’t last long enough to tell anybody about it.’
‘Take the crystals,’ I said and held out the bag of egrecite, the air stones.
With a puffing sound, both elemental and bag were gone. I lay back on the bed and sighed, wiping a mist of perspiration from my brow. Had the others returned to their realms as well, or was I going to have to give away all my crystals before I was safe? This job had gone thoroughly sour on me. Mrs. Amberny’s suggestion seemed attractive. Retirement, if only as a temporary condition. But without the crystals, I wouldn’t have enough to finance such a plan. Saving had never been one of my strong points. Easy come, easy go. I felt as if I wanted to turn my back on the whole human race. None of them was fit to receive pleasure, no matter how much they paid for it. I wanted out.
About an hour later, an undine pooled itself into existence on my bedroom floor. This was a water elemental, naked and beautiful and quite without qualms about taking my crystals. The aqualine had to go. Tomorrow I would leave this world, crystals or no crystals.
By dawn I thought I was safe, but was accosted by a gnome in the hotel corridor, a dark, brown-robed entity of Earth, who smelled of rich, carrion-fed soil and who rudely demanded my cave diamonds, even as a hovercar waited outside to take me to the spaceport.
Carrying only a bag of pyratitanite, I boarded the cruiser that would take me to Ganymede East. I knew it to be a quiet, tranquil place. I needed time for reflection; anywhere else would just be too damned fast.
Asher Tantine receded beneath me. I watched it from a window in the cruiser’s cocktail lounge; a small, revolving jewel, mother gem, fertile in her own bristly, spiky way. In my pocket the bag of pyratitanite remained intact. I sat down on a sofa and picked up a newspaper, another anachronism of the quaint world I was leaving. The journal informed me that already Mrs. Amberny and Matthew Breed had announced their nuptuals. Some people, at least, were happy then. I put the paper down on a nearby table.
Although no longer as rich as I could have been, the pyratitanite would secure me a modest future. If I was careful, and invested it wisely, there would be no need for me to work again. On top of that,
I had Mrs. Amberny’s money. As soon as I reached civilisation I would have it changed into standard credits. It could grow, as long as I wasn’t stupid with it. I didn’t want to lower my standard of living, which was disproportionately high, but neither had I the stomach for work at the moment. Perhaps this would change. Perhaps not. After half an hour, I decided to go to my cabin and contact Raifina Hallender.
The cabin was in darkness. I fumbled for the light, passing my hand back and forth over the heat sensitive panel that should have turned it on as I entered. Nothing happened. Grumbling, I backed out with the intention of finding a steward to complain to.
‘Wait,’ a voice hissed. This voice smelled of sulphur and ashes. The door slammed shut behind me and I pressed my back against it. ‘You did not dismiss us, Mr. Guilder.’
‘Oh no, not again,’ I whimpered.
A salamander is not a cute little lizard as you might expect. It is an eight-foot flaming warrior who doesn’t take any shit off anybody. Now there was one in my cabin holding out its hand. Goodbye retirement. ‘The crystals...’ I began.
‘However,’ the salamander interrupted, ‘because of the arrival of a certain Pharaoh Hallender in our laps, it was not necessary in our case, anyway.’
I breathed a sigh of relief and then said, ‘Why are you here then?’
The salamander folded its arms, drops of liquid flame from its hair causing unusual holes in the fire-resistant bed spread. ‘Well, we thought you ought to be offered a choice. After all, Pharaoh Hallender is known to us. We have worked with him many times. My brothers thought you might want to give us the crystals instead.’ It extended a glowing hand and illuminated the bed. Now I could see that upon it lay the body of Pharaoh Hallender, his breast rising and falling gently, his black mane covering the pillows, his shoulders, the sheets. His colour was healthy; there seemed no sign of injury. ‘You can keep him or the crystals,’ the salamander said. ‘It’s really up to you. Mrs. Amberny gave you the stones. Pharaoh cannot give them to us.’
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