“Slipped, fell, and some must have landed in my mouth. Nasty stuff.” I shuddered in remembrance.
My ribs broken, my hands burning from the hag’s final spell, I’d nonetheless labored to free the unicorn from her trap. Then, after vomiting out the hag’s poison, the damned beast had trotted off without so much as a backward look. Ungrateful buggers. It was no wonder that the royal herd at Balmoral was the last in the land. No one else would bother to care for such fickle creatures.
“You?” I asked.
“A curse.”
Poor bastard. Most men thought of eternal life as a gift, but he had the right of it. It was a curse.
“I have seen much in my days. As have you,” he said.
We traded improbable stories. Guillaume claimed to have seen the great fire that destroyed London. I told him of hunting the dancing apemen—humans who went mad as their bodies were transformed into beasts.
He topped that with an improbable story of the night a god and an emperor had strolled into his tavern.
The party of English travelers arrived for their dinner. The innkeeper summoned Guillaume to service, but one glare from Guillaume was enough to send the innkeeper scurrying to fetch his own dishes.
I sensed Guillaume would no longer be employed come morning.
Our dinner consisted of sausages fried with potatoes, again fetched by Guillaume. From what I could see, the English party was enjoying less common fare, not that I had any complaints.
As the sun had set, our stories grew darker.
“It’s not the grave robbers you have to worry about,” I explained, picking up the threads of an earlier tale. “The men who dig up corpses for medical students are simply greedy. Even those who are said to hasten the sick along their way—in order to provide the freshest of corpses—they are merely amoral. No, it’s the ones who buy the corpses that you should fear.”
“And why is that?” he asked.
“Because at least some of them are resurrectionists. They aren’t studying anatomy, they are trying to create life.”
I noticed that one of the women had moved her chair closer to us, so she could eavesdrop on our tales. It was the dark-haired woman, who had been introduced as Frau Shelley.
“They take bits from this corpse and bits from that, then sew them together. Trying to create an automaton—a creature without a soul, slave to their wishes. The very worst kind of abomination.”
The woman’s gasp of horror was everything I’d been expecting. Her husband looked up, noticing her defection, and loudly declared that it was time for them to retire.
I’d crossed a line tonight. I’d exposed the secrets of the Order to a stranger, recounted tales that had never been meant for outsiders to hear. No matter that Frau Shelley would dismiss what she’d heard as the fanciful imaginings of a drunkard. It was enough that I knew what I had done.
Worse yet, I did not care.
As silence fell over the common room, Guillaume regarded me for a long moment. At last, he nodded.
“Are you ready for that beer?” he asked.
I thought about the years behind me. The horrors that kept me awake at nights. The endless regrets, for each victim I had failed to save.
I thought of enduring this way for decades. Centuries. Waging a war that could never be won, could only be endured.
Forsythe was ready to lead. There’d be no one to miss me. Not really. The Old Man would join the ranks of heroes—legends meant to inspire those too naïve to realize the cost of their service. Better a dead legend than a living relic who would infect them with my own bitter despair.
I watched as Guillaume pulled a dusty jug out from under the counter and filled a pewter tankard. Even from here I could feel the waves of magic that rolled off it.
I wondered if this was his true curse—that he could bring ease to others but never to himself.
“Yes,” I said. “I am ready.”
THE ALCHEMY OF ALCOHOL
Seanan McGuire
San Francisco, California, 1899
A faint tracery of the evening light managed to bleed in through the bar’s windows, tinting the air the color of good Barbados rum. It had started as light rum, trending into golden as the sun continued its descent. Now it was turning a dark-rum-red, which meant true night couldn’t be far behind. “Andy, go ahead and turn the gas up. Just a quarter inch, mind, and no more.”
There’s an art to properly lighting a drinking establishment—an art that’s dying fast in this vulgar age of electric lights and cheap gas. Too dark and no one sees what they’re drinking; too bright, and everyone sees what they’re drinking. Neither direction is good for business. A successful bar needs to balance mystery with secrecy, true class with shabby gentility and, most of all, obscurity with discretion. People need to feel confident that they can drink in peace, without concern that they’ll be intercepted while conducting whatever assignations they can’t expose to more direct light. That’s why, in my bar, the windows are always covered with a carefully maintained mixture of dust, soot, and coal powder, the gas is never opened past a certain mark, and there are no electric lights outside the living spaces above and the workroom below. Perhaps the time for places like mine is ending, but until it does, the lights will stay low, the windows will stay opaque, and the house whiskey will stay cheap.
I generally ask Gil to adjust the lighting, when I can’t take the time to do it myself. He has delicate hands for such a large gentleman. Sadly, I’d spent the night occupied with my studies, and he’d been forced to work the early shift behind the bar, despite having closed three nights in a row. Gil was asleep upstairs, and likely to remain so unless the building actually caught fire. That left the task to Andy, who was never the best choice for anything requiring fine attention to detail.
The few drinkers who’d arrived before sunset grumbled as Andy adjusted the lights, but subsided back into their cups once it became clear that things wouldn’t be getting any brighter than they’d been before. I nodded approvingly in his direction, and went back to polishing the bar. She’s a grand old girl, pure ash wood from England, older than me by a hundred years and likely to outlive me by at least a hundred more.
I was topping off a pint for one of the regulars when the door swung open, the sound familiar enough to attract no more than a flicker of interest. Whoever it was would either find a seat and wait for service or come over to demand it. Either way, I’d ruin the foam if I didn’t finish the pull before letting myself get distracted.
The sound of shattering glass was more than sufficient to distract me. Old Tom, sensing that his beer was about to move beyond his reach forever, broke a cardinal rule of bar etiquette and leaned across the bar to snatch the pint from my hand. I scarcely noticed. I was already turning toward the sound, shoulders rigid with fury. Realizing that I might need a weapon, I grabbed a bottle from the back of the bar, brandishing it.
The man responsible for sweeping half a dozen glasses and a quarter-bottle of good scotch to the floor stared at me. I returned the favor, though he only held my attention for a moment, I must admit.
In my defense, the corpse was entirely unexpected.
I have been working in bars and public houses since I was sixteen, when my father got me a job as a waitress in the bar he tended. In that not-inconsiderable length of time, I’ve seen all manner of things displayed on bars. Gold doubloons from pirate treasure, rare artifacts from South America, rattlesnake skins, and—on one noteworthy occasion—a ship’s cat and her litter of kittens. I kept one of the kittens, and she’s done an excellent job at keeping the mice from the storeroom ever since. I did not think the dead woman was likely to perform the same service. Nor would I be inclined to keep her.
Fixing the corpse-bearer with a stern eye, I folded my arms—the gesture somewhat complicated by the bottle—and demanded, “What, sir, do you think you’re doing? This is a public house, not a funeral parlor.” As an afterthought, I added, “And you’ll be paying for those glasses.”
“I’m terribly sorry, miss, but this is an emergency.” He straightened as he spoke, and I realized for the first time how distressingly attractive he was. His hair was the color of ripe wheat, and his skin was a deep tan entirely at odds with the cut of his coat, which bespoke a man who’d never done a day’s labor in his life. Gentlemen are a rare sight in my establishment. Gentlemen carrying corpses were an entirely new experience. “I’d heard that this bar—ah.” He glanced around at the regulars, all of whom were ignoring the dead body in favor of their drinks, and at Andy, who was openly gawking. Then he lowered his voice, and said, “I’d heard that the owner was an alchemist. Please, can you fetch him for me? I can pay quite well for his time.”
“First you can pay for the glasses,” I countered. “After that, you can get the body off my bar, and perhaps I’ll let you start explaining why you brought it here.”
“I—what?”
I put down the bottle and thrust my hand in his direction, palm upward. “I’m Mina Norton. This is my bar, hence the name of ‘Norton’s.’ Now, sir, if you would like to depart here with both your bodies intact, you will pay me, and then explain yourself.”
“Oh.” He fumbled for his purse. “I didn’t think you’d be so. . . .”
“Female?”
“Accessible.” A large wad of bills was slapped into my palm. That attracted the attention of several regulars, who could’ve heard a coin clink half a mile away. I glared until they went back to their beers. Meanwhile, the blond gentleman was looking at me anxiously. “My name is James. James Holly. This is my wife, Margaret.”
“I see. I would claim that it’s a pleasure to meet the pair of you, but as she is dead and you have placed her on my bar, that is somewhat difficult. Did you require aid in preparing her for burial?” I allowed my attention to return to the body. Her attire was as fine as his, although I couldn’t imagine any living woman allowing herself to be corseted so tightly. “I can see why you wouldn’t want the undertaker to work any further. I have cosmetics that can easily cover the damage he’s done.” The tradition of painting bodies before burial has always struck me as ghoulish, and I’d rarely seen it taken to such an extreme. The poor girl’s skin was paper-white, and her lips were the color of blood. That might not have been so bad if she’d been blonde, but her hair was black as coal. It was like having a dead fairy-tale princess decaying gently in my place of work.
“What? No!” James put a hand protectively on the dead woman’s shoulder. “I’m not here so you can prepare her for burial.”
“What, then?”
“I’m here so you can wake her up.”
After convincing Andy to take over for me—not the easiest task, given that I employ him for his willingness to follow instructions, not his ability to think for himself—I waved James into the back storeroom. The question of what to do with his dead wife was easily resolved: he picked her up like she was made of cotton and swan’s-down, carrying her easily as he followed me. The door swung shut behind us, sealing us away from prying eyes.
“You can put her on Andy’s cot. He won’t mind.” I stepped out of the way, watching the dead woman for signs of life. There weren’t any. The alchemist’s art doesn’t require quite as many anatomical samples as, say, necromancy, but I still pride myself on being able to tell the dead from the living. Margaret was definitely among the former. “Now, sir, I’m not sure where you learned of my craft, but I’m afraid I must disappoint you. Alchemy is the art of transfiguration and transformation. This does not give me the capacity to transform the dead into the living.”
“That’s where you’re incorrect.”
“I am reasonably sure that I know my own business better than you, sir.”
“Not that. You come very highly recommended—although by one who, I admit, failed to identify your gender, probably because he was having a bit of amusement at my expense.”
“Then what?”
“Margaret isn’t dead.”
I eyed the body. “I beg to differ.”
“Well, I suppose technically, she’s dead right now. But she isn’t always.”
“Most of us start as the living. It’s a natural part of the human condition.”
James rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I really am terrible at this part. All right: Margaret is dead right now, but she won’t be dead in another three weeks or so. It’s just that I need her to be awake now, as we’re being pursued by some rather unpleasant people who want to have her buried before then.”
“I see,” I said, slowly. “You’re insane.”
“No. I’m the Summer King.”
I stared at him. He nodded encouragingly. “Oh, bollocks.”
“Funny.” James smiled a little. “That’s what Margaret said the first time I told her.”
“And she would be ... ?”
“The Winter Queen.”
I bit my tongue and counted to ten before allowing myself to answer. It wouldn’t have been productive to say the first things that came to mind, which began with “get out” and promptly devolved into language even an alchemist wasn’t expected to be familiar with. Finally, I said, “Absolutely, how silly of me not to have seen it before. Can you wait here for just a moment?”
James eyed me suspiciously, smile fading. “Where are you going?”
“To get the rum. This is not something I am prepared to deal with while sober.”
The tedious thing about magic is the way it insists on existing. There’s far more of it than the world’s assortment of magicians, alchemists, shamans, and sorcerers could ever make use of, and so it gads about manifesting in inconvenient places. Some people—like my father and myself—can learn to use magic. Others simply are magic, existing according to rules outside the normal boundaries of the human condition.
This includes the seasonal monarchs, once ordinary men and women who somehow, through luck, effort, or coincidence, have been chosen to live as the physical incarnations of the seasons. One human standing for Summer, one for Winter. They can live for centuries if they hold onto their thrones, and their presence prevents the seasons from getting out of balance. The world needs them to keep turning. They provide stability to an unstable system. I would have been perfectly happy to live a long and prosperous life without encountering either of them, much less both at the same time.
“And whoever heard of a Summer King, anyway?” I muttered, as I stalked behind a startled-looking Andy to grab a bottle of the best spiced rum in the house. As an afterthought, I also grabbed a glass. “Don’t they know it’s supposed to be a Summer Queen?”
“Ma’am?” said Andy.
I stopped. Upsetting Andy isn’t nice. He’s a little slow.
Not stupid—slow. Understandable, given that I crafted him from some particularly nice boulders I found beneath the Golden Gate. He does his job well, providing Gil and I don’t change his instructions too quickly, and don’t mind when sweeping the floor takes all day. “Don’t worry, I have everything well under control. You’re going to be minding the bar for a while yet. Don’t let anyone into the back unless you hear screaming, all right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Andy, nodding contentedly as he returned to wiping down the already spotless bar. Golems are easy to please. That’s the nicest thing about them.
In the storeroom, James had taken a seat on the edge of the cot, holding Margaret’s hand in his. Now that I was looking at him properly, it was easy to see the veracity of his claim. Fair-haired gentlemen are common enough, but how many of them actually brighten a room with the faint glow coming off their person? His eyes were the color of a midsummer sky, which seemed to me to verge ever so slightly into the kingdom of “simply too much.” It even felt as if the temperature had gone up a few degrees since I left to get the rum. I fixed him with a stern eye.
“Are you bringing summer to my storeroom? I have things in here that shouldn’t be heated.”
James had the good grace to look faintly abashed. “I’m terr
ibly sorry, Miss Norton. I can’t help it. If it helps at all, we’re near enough to harvest that I probably won’t make flowers start growing from the floorboards.”
“How your housekeeper must adore you.” I uncorked the rum, pouring three fingers into my glass. “Now, then. If your—let’s call it ‘indisposed’—wife is meant to wake up in three weeks, why are you here now? Can’t you simply be patient for a little while longer?”
“It’s not impatience that brought us to your door. Margaret and I are quite accustomed to our ... arrangement. It’s quite soothing, actually, having a spouse who’s dead for three months out of the year. Gives you time to remember why you married in the first place.”
I elected not to think overly much about the implications of his statement. It seemed safer all the way around. “So what, then?”
“It’s Margaret’s sister, Jane. She wants to take the Winter. If she can have Margaret interred before the harvest starts the turn of seasons, then she can step up to the throne, and ascend to Winter Queen. At which point I’m in rather a lot of trouble, as Jane’s husband is a huge, strapping brute, and would simply subdue me until Winter’s ascension renders me powerless.”
“I suppose this would be followed by his claiming Summer.”
“Precisely.” James gave me an earnest look. “Please, Miss Norton. I’ve endeavored to be a good Summer King, and a good husband. I wish neither to be deposed, nor for my wife to truly die.”
I sighed before draining my rum glass in one long swallow. It didn’t help much, but it made me feel a little better. “Oh, all right. Bring her along.”
“Where are we going?” he asked, as he hastened to comply.
“My workroom in the basement. If I’m going to wake the dead, I’d rather not do it where it can frighten the paying customers.”
There are those who insist that maintaining a business above a large hole in the earth in San Francisco is foolhardy, given the region’s propensity for earthquakes. I subscribe to the school of thought which says “earthquakes are rare, explosions, less so.” Through tempering and tampering, I had rendered the stone basement walls all but indestructible, which muffled the sound of any accidents I might have. The seals and sigils chiseled into the floor and ceiling blocked the room from almost all forms of magical viewing; useful, given some of the treasures it contained.
After Hours: Tales From Ur-Bar Page 15