It was a shopping list – eggs, milk, bread and wine – and so out of place that Aubrey's curiosity ran around in circles, with bells on. A shopping list had no place in the middle of a magician's notebook. It had to be a code.
He ran his finger over the words and felt the texture of magic.
A speck of light danced over the page, and he looked up. The glass in the light fitting glinted back at him. He stared at its brass base, where it joined the ceiling. He moved to one side, then climbed on top of the workbench to get a better view, despite his aching knees.
'What are you doing?' George asked.
'The light fitting is on a ratchet.'
George peered upward. 'I'll take your word for it. But why would anyone do that?'
'To turn it.' Aubrey frowned. 'Can you see a rod? Something long enough to reach? It'll have a fitting on the end to slot into the base.'
George crossed to the window. 'Like this?'
George held up a long pole with a metal hook on the end, obviously meant to open the topmost windows of the workshop, but quite easily having another use. Aubrey took the pole and stood directly underneath the light fitting. 'Let's assume that the door is twelve o'clock.'
'By all means.' George put his hands in the pockets of his jacket. 'I assume you'll clarify that cryptic statement when you're ready.'
'I'm glad you used the word "cryptic".' Aubrey grimaced. He needed to fit the hook into the hole at the base of the light fitting. The pole wobbled, the hook slid, but finally he fitted it home. 'Because I suspect we're dealing with steganography here.'
'I'm sure we are. Go on.'
'Codes and ciphers are close cousins, ways to encrypt messages in an effort to make sure no-one else reads them. Unless you know the encryption key.' Aubrey's arms were aching from holding them up for so long. He gritted his teeth, flexed his forearms and the light fitting shifted. A click at a time, it ratcheted until he'd moved the slot to the seven o'clock position. 'Here.' He gave George the pole and he climbed down from the bench. Even that small physical exertion had him panting. 'Steganography,' George prompted.
Aubrey looked up. If he placed the notebook in the middle of the workbench it should be right underneath that slightly grey-coloured mirror. He arranged it carefully, open at the page with the shopping list. 'Can you turn on the light, please, George?'
'In the middle of the day?' George protested, but he was already on the way to the switch by the door. 'There.'
And there, Aubrey thought. The mysterious list on the page vanished. In its place were lines of minute, but perfectly readable, writing.
'Steganography is the science of hidden writing,' Aubrey said. 'If an enemy doesn't know that a message is there, it can slip past undetected. In ancient times it was said that a king shaved the head of a slave and tattooed a message on it. When the hair grew back he sent the slave across the border, where the recipient of the message shaved the slave's head again and read the message.'
'Not much fun being a slave.' George examined the journal. 'Bernard used steganography to hide his notes?'
'His notes on death magic.'
George grunted. 'Death magic? You're not going to mess around with that again, are you?'
Aubrey sighed. 'Anything else is simply fiddling at the edges.'
George closed Bernard's journal. He scowled. 'No.'
'No?'
'You can't, old man. Not after what happened last time.' He looked distressed. 'It's wrong, Aubrey. Death magic is wrong.'
'I don't have much choice,' he said in a small voice, moved by his friend's concern. 'I know, I know,' George said. He sighed. 'I simply thought that someone should tell you that this is a very bad idea. You need to be reminded, every now and then, that you're not infallible.' George gave Aubrey a sharp glance. 'Especially since you're going to go ahead, regardless.'
Aubrey started to object, but George held up a hand. 'I want you to get well again, old man. If this is the only way to do it, let's meet it head on.'
'Tally-ho,' Aubrey murmured.
George shook his head and gave Bernard's journal back to Aubrey. 'What does it say?'
'There's a lot here. I'll need time to read it.'
It took nearly an hour and Aubrey's head was spinning when he finished. Bernard had done more than skirt the edges of death magic. His experiments had probed some of the darkest areas of the deadly art. His notes were concise and well ordered, recording the effects of spells in accurate, clear terms, but a sense of horror lay underneath every word he wrote.
Aubrey felt sorry for the man. Working alone, forgotten, doing his best to keep alive the traditions of his faculty, it must have been a hard life. Based on his journal, Aubrey thought that Bernard could have been a feted savant if he lived in Albion. Universities would have clamoured for his services. Other magicians would have been eager to work with him. Yet here, in Lutetia, he had died a solitary death, unknown and unheralded.
Aubrey hoped that he could honour Bernard by using his work to good effect. It was a practical, useful homage.
He straightened and massaged the back of his neck. Near the window, George had stretched out on the bare floor, his new straw boater on his chest, his hands behind his head, sleeping the sleep of the untroubled. With some regret, he nudged his friend awake with his toe.
George shook himself and yawned. 'Dashed rude of you, old man. I was having a splendid dream. I was with this very charming –'
Aubrey gave a half-hearted smile. 'Enough. Keep your dreams to yourself.'
'Happy to.' George stood and brushed himself off. 'Are you ready?'
'Accoutrements, George. I need your help to find some spell paraphernalia.'
'Is that the sort of stuff you sneer at and call claptrap?'
'I don't sneer, do I?'
'Not often. Occasionally.'
Aubrey made a mental note to avoid sneering; he'd never liked it. He took a deep breath. 'Bernard was keen on using candles, braziers and the like. My feeling is that they're just scene setting and don't really contribute to a spell's effects, but Bernard felt more comfortable using them. Perhaps they helped focus his attention.'
'Sounds like they can't hurt, anyway.'
'Consider it a touch of theatre.'
It was a measure of Aubrey's nervousness that he was willing to contemplate using such ornaments. If he'd felt more confident, he would have jettisoned such stuff as superstitious nonsense.
George peered into the box they'd already opened. 'What exactly are we looking for?'
'We need four green candles. Twisted ones, preferably, but even Bernard admitted that was a nicety.'
George grunted. 'You're in luck. This box is full of 'em. Give me a minute and I see if I can find four twisted green candles.'
Aubrey took the pry bar to the vestibule and levered up the top of another box. When he examined the contents, his admiration for Bernard grew. The Lutetian magician may have been a recluse and an eccentric, but he had been a careful craftsman. Every casket, jar and bottle in the crate was clearly marked in Bernard's distinctive, spiky handwriting. They showed that his intellect roamed not just across magical fields, but also into natural history and science. Aubrey sorted through fossils, geological specimens and magical curios from the past. He was surprised to see a slim case marked 'unicorn horn', but then saw Bernard's wry note: 'actually carved ivory'. He smiled to see that Bernard had an interest in collecting such fakes. He found two Philosopher's Stones, a Phoenix feather, three magic wands, two sacks with 'magic beans' written on them (one empty) and a stringless harp.
At the bottom of the crate he found what he was looking for: a tripod and brass brazier plus a roll of shimmering, golden cloth.
Aubrey couldn't imagine how the penniless magician had come by such a thing. He ran his hand over the fabric, feeling its cool, supple resilience, and he knew it was true cloth of gold, made entirely of fibres of the precious metal. It was worth a fortune, and the fact that Bernard had not sold it suggested something about
its importance.
George loomed in the doorway. 'Found what you need?'
'Here.' Aubrey thrust the brazier on him. 'You have the candles?'
'Four: green and twisted as a corkscrew.'
'Excellent.' Aubrey hefted the cloth of gold and tried to quell his rising nervousness. 'Now, to work.'
Aubrey hunted for the restraining diagram he'd used to trap the mindless Bernard, but couldn't find it thanks to Maurice's careful scrubbing. This did mean, however, that he had a clear field to work with.
On hands and knees, he used white chalk to inscribe the simple ring that Bernard's notes had suggested. Aubrey was careful with the dimensions, so that the result was more oval than round. When he finished, he lay on his back. 'I'm not poking out, am I?'
'No, but you don't have much room. The line's about an inch away from the top of your head.' George craned his neck. 'The same gap's between your feet and the line – about an inch.'
'I don't need much room. I won't be moving around.'
The narrow confines were an intentional refinement on Aubrey's part. Bernard's notes hadn't specified dimensions of the restraining diagram, but Aubrey thought it might help to limit the extent of the spell, and thus intensify it.
Aubrey stood, careful not to smudge the chalk line. 'Now. Candles. Two on my left side, two on my right. Outside the ring.' He heard how clipped his voice was and tried to relax.
'Shall do. The brazier?'
'About half a yard away from my feet. Outside the ring.'
'Of course.' George tapped his chin. 'You'll be wanting something burning in the brazier?'
Aubrey groaned. 'Bernard's notes said he always had charcoal smouldering while he experimented with death magic. He said it helped soothe his soul.'
'Probably helped to warm his toes.' George shook his head. 'I didn't see any charcoal lying around. I'll ask Maurice if he has some.'
While waiting for George, Aubrey inspected the diagram, flexing his hands in an effort to keep them from trembling.
Aubrey was afraid. This wasn't the stealthy, tiptoe pickpocket fear, the fear that crept up from behind and stroked with ice-cold fingers; it was the fear that overwhelmed in a frontal assault – crushing, teeth-chattering, bowel-loosening fear.
He bit his lip, hard, and the sharp pain – added to the many discomforts that he endured – was like a dash of cold water in his face. He threw off the fear, took a deep breath and examined the cloth of gold.
George returned with a small bucket full of charcoal and a box of safety matches. 'What are you going to do with that cloth?' he asked.
'According to Bernard's notes, it can strengthen the bond between body and soul. Perfect when one is messing about with death magic.' Aubrey unwound a length and let it fall. 'The Law of Similarity. And the Law of Affinity.'
'You're going to drape yourself in it?'
'More than that. I need to be wrapped up.'
Aubrey stood at one end of the restraining diagram while George grappled with the heavy bolt of cloth, unwrapping it as he walked. George alternated between chuckling and apologising for his chuckling. 'You're starting to look like some sort of pagan idol, old man,' he said when Aubrey was wrapped up to his waist.
'Good, but I don't intend to spend a millennium or two buried beneath the sands.' Aubrey wobbled a little as his friend tugged the cloth tighter.
George continued his careful circuit, unrolling the cloth of gold as he went. Aubrey's nervousness grew. His arms were pinned at his side by the layers of cloth and he had an moment of panic. He was helpless and he hated it.
His recent uncharacteristic errors while spell-casting preyed on him. He couldn't afford to fumble while working with death magic, but neither could he take the time to rest and recover.
He didn't like to think what would happen if it wasn't successful.
Aubrey rehearsed the spell Bernard had constructed. It used an Etruscan language base, with an open-ended variable for duration which was a tongue-twisting series of glottal syllables. The spell was essentially a barrier spell, placing a shield around the magician's body and soul, keeping them united in the face of the call of the true death. Once in place, it would allow a magician to conduct experiments without his soul being torn away and vanishing into that country of no return.
Aubrey was sure this was the sort of thing Dr Tremaine had in mind when the Sorcerer Royal had taunted him over his condition. It was an essential tool for anyone dealing with death magic. With hindsight, Aubrey knew he'd been an idiot not to have realised it before his disastrous foray into such a dangerous area of magic.
The only drawback Aubrey could see was that Bernard's spell was a singular spell – it was of the rare category of enchantment that a magician could only cast once. The elements of the spell immediately lost their power after being spoken, and couldn't be used again.
It was a minor shortcoming, Aubrey decided. If he did this correctly, he wouldn't have to use it again. No time for mistakes, he thought.
George's brow furrowed as he worked. Aubrey wriggled his shoulders and felt the weight of the cloth. He resisted the temptation to tell George to hurry. 'Tighter. It must be firm.'
'Very well. And what about your head?'
'That too. Wrap me up entirely.'
The cloth of gold was Bernard's truly revolutionary idea. It had been understood by magicians for centuries that the soul and the body were linked by a golden thread, the same thread that – when the right time came – took the soul through the portal to the true death. Bernard used the Law of Similarity and the Law of Affinity to derive a spell that would turn the cloth of gold into a veritable suit of armour that would hold body and soul together.
At least, it would in an ordinary person, Aubrey thought. With his body and soul jolted apart, he wasn't sure how effective this magical shield would be. It was, however, the most promising development he'd discovered since his accident.
The cloth of gold passed in front of his eyes. He found he could still see, although the world had become golden. It was harder to breathe, too, but not impossible.
'Are you all right?' George asked. He tugged the cloth and Aubrey nearly overbalanced.
'Perfectly. Especially if you stop trying to tip me over.'
'Sorry. Mind if I ask a question, old man?
'Go ahead.'
'I'm holding one end of this roll of cloth. You're all wrapped up with the other end buried underneath your layers. That means we're linked. Is it meant to be like that?'
'You have to cut the cloth. The loose end will wind itself into the rest.'
'Cut the cloth. Good.' George was silent for a moment. 'Hold still, old man. I have to unwind some more.'
Aubrey braced himself. He couldn't see George, but he could feel his friend backing away, keeping the tension on the bolt of cloth while he paid it out.
George's voice came from a distance to Aubrey's right. 'Still there?'
'I'm rooted to the spot.' Aubrey's voice sounded muffled even to himself. It was growing warm inside the golden swaddling. He swallowed, and it felt as if a football was lodged in his throat.
'Good, good. I'm in the vestibule. Just looking for . . . Ah! Excellent!'
'What have you found?'
'A large pair of shears. I'm sure they'll do the trick. Should have got them earlier, I suppose.'
'You're doing well, George. I appreciate it.'
Aubrey endured a series of tugs and releases as George reversed his journey, rolling up the cloth as he went. Aubrey realised he was sweating, and not entirely because of the warmth.
'Ready, old man.' George said. 'Can I cut away?'
Aubrey could make out his friend, frowning and brandishing a large pair of shears. 'Go ahead. Carefully.'
The shears hissed through the cloth of gold. Aubrey felt a slight tension, then it passed. 'What's happened?' he asked.
George's voice was respectful. 'Just as you said. The end of the cloth curled up all by itself. I can't even see where it joined.'
'Good. Now, lay the remainder aside.'
'Done.'
Aubrey gathered himself. Again, he ran over the spell in his mind and then, standing there, aching and afraid, he began to have second thoughts.
The hesitation was like opening a door in a gale. His mind was flung wide; his thoughts scattered and ran in all directions. Fragments came to him – his father, Stonelea school, his dreams of a seat in Parliament, his disappointment over never having owned a dog. Meaningless memories, opinions and impressions assailed him, battered at his attention before he found the strength to marshal himself and achieve a moment of clarity. In the brief stillness, he used his magical senses to examine his condition.
There was no doubt about it. He was dying.
His fatigue had gone beyond the physical. It was a profound, inner exhaustion, a result of striving for so long to keep body and soul together. All his tinkering, all his makeshift patching and shoring up was collapsing. His soul was separating from his body.
His magical senses allowed him to see it edging out of his physical form, being pulled away by the golden cord attached to its left wrist. It was a pale, ghostly replica of his physical form, with features that were indistinct and obscured.
He knew that another golden cord was secured to his soul's right wrist, and thence to the core of his body – and this was the cord that had separated.
He had very little time left.
Do not hurry, he told himself as he forced himself to be calm. He concentrated on the intricacies of the task ahead. The elegant spell array that Monsieur Bernard had established demanded his full attention. Little by little, the sense of dread ebbed and he was absorbed in the task at hand.
'George, stand behind me, please.'
'Done.'
'Now, I need to be lying down, so I'm going to fall backward. I want you to catch me and help me to the floor.'
'I can do that.'
'Make sure I'm not poking out of the diagram. And don't scuff the chalk either. I don't want to have to draw it again. And don't forget how heavy I'll be, wrapped in all this gold.'
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