The Conjurers

by David Waid

  THE

  CONJURERS

  A Gritty Fantasy of Witches and Wizards

  David Waid

  Deadlock Publishing

  Phoenix Arizona

  The Conjurers: A Gritty Fantasy of Witches and Wizards copyright © 2016 David Waid

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.

  Cover design and formatting www.jdsmith-design.com

  Cover art and interior illustrations www.patrickarrasmith.com

  Published by Deadlock Publishing

  All enquiries to Editor@deadlockpublishing.com

  First published 2016

  ISBN: 978-0-9861719-0-1

  For exciting bonus material from the world of The Conjurers, and email updates from the author

  Or visit David Waid online at www.davidwaidauthor.com

  Dedication

  For Maureen, Conall, Declan and Bridget,

  my Polaris and pointer stars.

  Acknowledgments

  This novel would not have been possible without the community of writers whose passion, skill and generosity elevated my efforts and whose collective strength helped me through the darksome, doubting times. In particular, my thanks to the Arizona Novel Writers Workshop, FF7, the Snakebite Six and Nexus. You are beautiful dreamers, all.

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  1. The Road to Dublin

  2. The House of Inauspicious Signs

  3. Nairne

  4. Something Wicked

  5. Inn of the Three Shrikes

  6. Consequences

  7. Dreams in the Farmhouse

  8. Visitation

  9. Rituals

  10. Ignacio’s Journal

  11. La Raccolta dei Maghi

  12. Three Brigands

  13. Lodovicetti’s Sanctum

  14. ‘Divil Take the Man’

  15. Events at the Mahogany Table

  16. What Befell the Brigands

  17. Grimoire

  18. Out of the Mountains

  19. Spinning Fate

  20. A Secret History

  21. The Valley of Winds

  Part Two

  22. Lessons of the Road

  23. Refuge

  24. Flight and Pursuit

  25. Visit of the Tinker

  26. Possession

  27. The Devil’s Own Luck

  28. With the Hansa

  29. Bells and Bantam

  30. Voyage of the Beornsdæd

  31. Maledicam Mortuorum

  32. Hekat

  33. Landfall

  34. Precipice

  35. The Rubble Cairn

  36. Port of Exit

  Part One

  Winter, 1380

  “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

  — Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus

  1. The Road to Dublin

  Leinster

  Ten wolves there had been, now eight. Half a league back, Eamon and Duff had killed two with arrows. The animals had plunged in and out of snowdrifts, yipping and snarling as they died, trying to bite at the shafts, churning spots of red into the white. The rest of the pack scattered in the fading valley light, losing themselves amongst wind-whipped showers of snow and ice crystals.

  Clutching the curved yew wood of his bow, Eamon clamped his eyes shut, fought an urge to vomit away his last meal. The cold, greasy mutton he’d swallowed before leaving home twisted like a knuckle at the back of his throat.

  Behind him, the road continued to unspool, its rutted snow flattened by dusk and distance. What had happened to the world he’d woken up to this morning? It was gone.

  His sister huddled nearby beneath a tatty woolen blanket, eyes wide. On the driver’s bench, their mother and Duff leaned into the fitful gusts while a pale slice of moon shone overhead.

  The wolves might have run off for good, he thought. Or they might be pacing the wagon from inside the forest verge, thirty yards away. The trees were to the left, upslope, but also downwind where the horses would catch no scent.

  The smoky trace of a hearth fire somewhere on the road ahead filled Eamon’s lungs every time he drew breath. The hair of his nostrils froze, and each time he exhaled, they softened in a cloud of steam. Then he spotted movement. Beneath the trees. He must have tensed because Caitlin asked, “Do you see wolves?”

  He leaned against the wagon’s side, gaze fixed on the darkness between boles. He couldn’t be sure.

  “Eamon?”

  “Whisht!” Whatever he had seen was gone. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  He thrummed the string of his bow and listened without looking away from the trees. By its sound, the cord was not freezing. Had he known they’d be fleeing in this cold, abandoning home and all they knew, he could have coated it in fat. Yet everything happened too fast when Father Rhys banged his fist against the door and shouted of brigands coming to sack their tiny village.

  The track they followed bent south, the forest line crept closer. The pine trees thinned, to be replaced by ghost-white birch, barren of leaves. When dusk turned to night and the crescent moon shone brighter, higher, the road turned again. It entered the wood along a lane hemmed at either side by thin, straight trunks. Overhead, the tangle of branches formed a long cathedral roof that covered the ground in a lattice of moonshadow and wraithlight.

  At the entrance to this natural tunnel, Duff drew rein and the team came to a stamping halt. Squinting over his shoulder at the road behind, the burly man said, “The wolves’ll have at us here.”

  Even in the cold, Eamon’s palms had grown damp where they clutched and twisted on the bow. Duff often said Eamon’s arms were like straw, his chest no wider’n a tittle broom handle, but what of it? Eamon was fifteen. He had his bow and one of the wolves had fallen to him. Straw arms or no, he could kill.

  “We’ll fight,” he said.

  Duff snorted. “In the dark? With bows? We’d be as like to kill each other. Put it down.” The man turned back to the forest. “Best t’ be done with this shite.” He snapped the reins and the wagon rolled forward. Eamon crouched at the wagon’s wall and would not let go of his bow. Duff had a hunting spear. Eamon had only this.

  Maybe the wolves were gone. He peered at the road behind, a fluttery, expectant pulse in his neck, but saw nothing.

  The cart moved under the trees. The wind died to a whisper. On either side, leafless bush skeletons thrust from the snow like the tines of antlers. A short way in, a thick tree limb had fallen across their path from the weight of snow.

  Handing the reins to Eamon’s mother, Duff said, “You take the horses. I’ll clear this.” Eamon started to follow, but Duff stayed him with a hand. “If it comes to it, protect yer mum and sister.”

  With a long grumbling scrape, Duff’s spear slid from behind the driver’s bench. He clamped it under one arm and trudged to the fallen limb. With his free hand, he grasped a place where the branch forked. He pulled and it moved, but barely. Cursing, he stood and adjusted the spear, pausing long enough to scan the dark. Then Duff reached back to the notch, crouched and heaved backwards with a grunt. The tree limb shook. With a muffled thump of dislodged snow, it ground across the path, out of the way. Eamon let out a breath.

  His mother spoke to the horses and flicked the reins. The wagon ro
lled on. From her place on the seat, she was first to spot where the hearth smoke had come from. She stood and pointed. Beyond the spur of woods, the black blot of a cottage hunched by the road. Behind it, a field of white sloped down and out of sight. She began to yell, “Help! Help!” and Duff joined in. “Hallo the house!”

  Shout as they might, however, the noise rattled and died amongst the trees. No response came from the cottage. But for the smoke, Eamon might have thought it abandoned.

  A low growl, barely perceptible, caused Eamon to turn. Twenty paces to the rear, the wolves had gathered, their shapes dark and indistinct in the tree shadows. He shouted and hurriedly loosed a shaft that was swallowed in silence. Duff ran back through the snow, jabbing with the spear, but the wolves danced away.

  Eamon nocked an arrow and squinted over the side as Caitlin stood, the blanket falling from her shoulders. She gripped their mother’s spindle in both hands like a small club, watching with her mouth open as the wolves paced closer and snarled. Lifting his bow, Eamon made out six.

  Only six. Snapping his head around, he searched the road, the forest. Nothing. Then, two bolts of black cut beneath the wagon. They ignored Duff, ignored Eamon and his sister, darting straight for the horses’ legs.

  The mare let out a shriek and the wagon jerked into motion, throwing Eamon down. His mother screamed, almost falling from the bench. They rumbled from under the trees and wind flicked the air. The cart skidded, tilting, the horses floundering into deep snow. Caitlin and Eamon fell against the rails followed by everything Father Rhys had packed and sent with them: large manuscripts in satchels and heavy, rag-wrapped items from the church’s altar service.

  Bound to the wagon, stuck in snow, the horses went mad, kicking at the wolves, the wain, at anything they could get to in their brute terror. The wagon’s rocking made it impossible to stand. Eamon saw his mother pitched from the bench. The blows of hooves thundered and the mare kept screaming until something splintered and the horses were freed. All at once, the movement stopped.

  Horse cries still echoed through the valley when Eamon heard the cottage door slam open. He caught the sound of a woman cursing and hounds baying as they sprinted into the night. Hope rose, a flash of relief that dropped like a stone as a wolf scrambled over the wagon’s rear end and everything happened fast and slow at once. Caitlin, who had pulled herself up, backed against the wagon wall, the useless spindle held before her in shaking hands.

  “Jump!” Eamon yelled.

  She started to climb over the wall, but stopped, looking back at him. “But…”

  From his place on the floor of the wagon, Eamon grabbed her leg and heaved. “Run!” he shouted as she dropped from sight.

  He started to stand, but the wolf growled, closer. He spun on his knees, holding the bow’s length out to keep the animal at bay. For Eamon, all sound stopped. The silence was sudden, complete. No wind or snarls, no cries. Not even the sound of his own breath.

  The wolf stepped forward, black markings around yellow eyes, black pupils in the center. The delicate muscles below one eye twitched. Its pupils were a tunnel, like the moon-thatched forest path behind them, a needle-wide well that drew Eamon in. And down.

  The wagon’s wood remained solid, but the world lurched and spun. When it stopped, Eamon knew he’d lost his mind. For a fleeting instant, he saw through the wolf’s eyes. Himself on the floor of the wagon: a Two-Leg with frightened, bewildered eyes, blunt nose sniffing uselessly at the air. Then he was back, but his thoughts…its thoughts…he wanted the grace of God, but also blood and meat. He wanted the hearthstone’s warmth and more — the scented wind and the running pack, heart thump, thump, thumping in his chest.

  He tried to clear his head, yet memories of Father Rhys began to jolt through him, each one so real. The cart and wolf disappeared. The old priest sat at the fire, patiently demonstrating the way to carve the figures of saints from blocks of fragrant cedar or speaking in English, French, or the priest’s native Welsh. Then it was Father Rhys standing, reading words from the Old Testament with a finger pressed to the page.

  Eamon took shuddering, shaking breaths, tried to focus on each one as the priest, oblivious, kept reading. In the dream-like warmth of this memory, the air grew cold against his lips, cold in his lungs. That was real.

  “Horrendum est incidere in manus Dei viventis,” read Father Rhys. “It is a frightful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.”

  Eamon tried ignore him, to picture the wagon, the wolf, use them as a lifeline. And when he did, the vision shook. The priest seemed to stretch, the words distorting. Something ruptured and Eamon’s vision went black. Sudden, cold air stung his skin like an open-hand slap. Silence returned and Eamon’s head felt full and tight like a fever.

  He opened his eyes and saw the wagon. He’d fallen forward onto his hands and knees and the wolf stood no more than an arm’s length away. The bow had fallen out of reach.

  In that instant, the wolf jerked and stumbled sideways. It shook itself as if emerging from a pool of water and its eyes narrowed, turning Eamon’s way. The animal’s lip curled back from yellow teeth and black gums, but its snarl petered into silence. The wolf watched him warily, sniffing the air with tiny lifts of its head. There was something between them. Eamon felt it, too. He reached a hand toward the beast and it neither attacked nor pulled away. He felt the feather brush of its breath.

  Suddenly, Duff’s spear jabbed across the wagon’s side, the man’s anger lending savage strength to the thrust. Eamon wanted to scream, “No,” but a vicious line of white pain stabbed his ribs, sent him sprawling, clutching his side.

  Duff pushed the shaft. The wolf stumbled, claws slipping in blood while Eamon writhed. The animal collapsed, thrashed, tried to stand, only to fall again, head resting on the wagon wood. And then, sudden as it had come, Eamon’s pain was gone.

  Like a dam breaking, sound rushed back in a wall of noise. Someone cried, someone shouted, horses screamed, dogs barked. The loudest sound was Eamon’s heart hammering in his ears, growing louder. His stomach heaved, but for all his earlier queasiness, the only thing that came up was a line of spit. Weak and shivering, he crawled to the wolf through a spreading pool of blood. The knees of his pants grew wet, his hands black with it.

  Eamon touched the fur on the wolf’s neck. It whined, tried to lift its head, but the animal was diminishing. Its one visible eye rolled toward him.

  Someone said, “Come away, lad,” and hands tugged him to his feet. Not his stepfather, but a stranger helping him off the wagon, and he was too confused, too dazed to resist. The wolf thrashed and tried again to lift its head and follow with its eye.

  As Eamon staggered toward the farmhouse, he saw the full scene of destruction. One horse — the mare — dead, lying in snow stained dark with blood. The front of the wagon was splintered wreckage. A broken form on the ground took time to register as a person from the odd tangle of her limbs. A dress. A whisk of fine, blond hair that brushed across the snow in the wind.

  At first, Eamon’s mind refused to make sense of it. The pieces were random, disjointed. They fit together, he knew, but he couldn’t understand how. Then they snapped into place: Mother.

  She lay where she’d been thrown, neck twisted to an unnatural angle. Duff had thrown the bloody spear aside and knelt by her. His cloak trailed in the snow like a crippled crow’s wing. Shoulders slumped, he spoke her name. “Aoife.”

  Tears sprang from Eamon’s eyes and he tried to run to them, but the stranger pulled him backward.

  “Nay, lad. It’s not safe. An’ there’s nothin’ ye can do.”

  At that, Eamon went mad, punching and kicking. Strong arms closed around his shoulders and the stranger half pulled, half carried him toward the house as, legs collapsing, he let out a howl of grief.

  2. The House of Inauspicious Signs

  Genoa

  Ignacio’s footsteps faded down the hall and Teresa shifted in her seat, hands fidgeting in her lap. She wanted to go after he
r brother, but was trapped — language lessons with the elderly Inglese, Father Hugh.

  “Your attention, if you please, Signorina.” Father Hugh arched his eyebrows, mouth set in a severe line. He tapped the wax tablet she had been writing on and Teresa followed the long stylus in his hand to the scrawled, uneven words she herself had written. Führen Sie mich das Salz bitte. Führen Sie mich das Salz bitte. Or, spoken twice in plain Genoese, “Please give me the salt.”

  Truly, she didn’t care about the salt, and she certainly didn’t care about it in German. But the priest was relentless.

  “Focus, Teresa. It is difficult to believe you are fourteen. Are you a young woman or a child to be so distracted?”

  “If I am a child, can I leave?”

  He pursed his lips, ignored the question. Down the hallway, the door to the house creaked open, thumped shut. She pictured Ignacio stepping into fading sunlight on the single slab step. He would turn right, walk toward the Church of San Lorenzo. That was as far as she’d ever been able to follow when he left for his apprenticeship, because something or someone always conspired against her. The home of Ignacio’s master, the alchemist, remained a mystery.

  Father Hugh studied her face. “Next you will tell me that you need to use the privy, yes?”

  Teresa slouched back in the settle. The anger she felt pinching her face must surely be visible. In fact, she had been about to say just that.

  The priest appraised her. She saw a sparkle of something in his eye that was…what? Amusement?

  “You may leave this room when you have given me two full sentences spoken in correct German.”

  “That could take all day!”

  “Fortune smiles upon you, my dear. I am a patient man.”

  “Um, um, Das Haus ist gross, kalt und dunkel, während draussen ist es ein schöner Tag. Mein Bruder ist weg und ich muss wirklich das eingeweiht zu verwenden. This house is big, cold and dark, while outside it is a beautiful day. My brother is gone and I really need to use the privy.”