A Study in Sable

by Mercedes Lackey

  “You play well, Señor Holmes,” said Sarasate with great satisfaction.

  Holmes actually flushed a little. “Praise from the master is praise indeed. I never would have had the temerity to think I could ever play for you, much less with you—”

  Sarasate chuckled. “You will perform to great effect, Señor Holmes, I am certain of it.”

  “If I am expected to perform well, I had better go to practice,” Holmes replied. “Midnight will come all too soon.” He packed up the violin and, with a slight bow to all of them, took his leave.

  “Where is he staying?” the violinist asked curiously. “Since he is not in the stable here with you?”

  Watson shook his head. “That is one of Sherlock’s little mysteries, although my suspicion is that he is camped out in a building used to store game known, appropriately enough, as the ‘Game Larder.’ Virtually all game is out of season now, so it would be empty. He probably has a local urchin bringing him supplies, as we have the wagon-driver who fetches items daily from the village picking up things for us.”

  “Well, good; he will be far enough from the manor that his practicing will not be heard, then. I gave him the easier of the two parts, obviously, but it is clear he is a competent player. And—something I would not have suspected, given his devotion to logic—a sensitive one.” Sarasate nodded with satisfaction. “His playing will echo my magic almost as well as if he were one of us.”

  Nan looked from the Watsons to Sarasate and back. “I assume that business about Magdalena’s power being some sort of sonic influence on the nerves is all gammon?”

  Watson laughed. “Completely. I do believe that Magdalena is a member of that class of Water Elementals known as the sirens, or rather, has a siren ancestor. I can tell you that sirens, like the Selch and the Selkies, are quite real, and like them I suspect they can intermarry with humans. Or at least, interbreed. Since they are exclusively female, they probably only keep the female infants and abandon the males.”

  “So, if a male infant was found—it would be easy enough to introduce siren blood into a family,” agreed Mary. “That makes perfect sense. The family would never know.”

  “Their magic is probably related to mine,” observed Sarasate. “Music is an excellent conduit for my magic. Well! That is extremely satisfactory; if her magic is based in music, she should be more susceptible to mine.”

  “Let us hope,” said Watson.

  “I think we are as prepared as we can be,” Mary put in. “So the wisest thing we can do is rest and be ready for midnight.”

  • • •

  “Tonight, at eleven,” Sarasate said, over the soup. Then later, over the fowl course, he added, “The conservatory.” He had interspersed both these bits of information with normal dinner conversation, choosing a moment when the others were laughing at something Magdalena or one of the other sparkling conversationalists had said to give Sarah her instructions in an undertone.

  Sarah was both relieved and terrified. Relieved that the others had finally come up with a plan; terrified that it wouldn’t work. All sorts of things had occurred to her as the outcome of the latter. The least of the disasters would be if Magdalena simply denounced them all to her host and had them thrown out, or even thrown into the local gaol. That scenario was one that could be salvaged; with all the tricks they had up their sleeves, they could easily escape from a simple country gaol and get to where they could contact Lord Alderscroft, who would smooth things over. Magdalena would still be free to act, but no longer unnoticed. And without Sarah, or some other medium to protect her, the ghost of her sister might just drive her back to Germany. She would still have gotten away with murder, but at least she wouldn’t be a threat to the British Government.

  But the worst—well—she could use her powers on all of them, turning them against each other. And she could exert herself to put Sarah thoroughly under her control, like a mediumistic lapdog, serving with adoration as long as Magdalena was plagued with spirits.

  As she was making dinner conversation with Pablo, she wondered what the plan actually was, and how much chance of success it had. She knew why she had been left out of the planning for tonight, and she absolutely agreed with the others. It would have been far too much of a risk to tell me anything. What if Magdalena got me under her control again? I could have run to her with what I knew. Could have? More than likely would have. But not knowing the plan—the uncertainty naturally made her imagination run wild—this was actually making her hand shake so much she was glad that the soup course was over.

  As usual, she excused herself from the after-dinner activities—but just in time to hear that the men intended to have an evening of brandy, cigars, and billiards, leaving the ladies to their own devices. She had thought that Magdalena would be displeased by this, but in fact, she seemed delighted. I wonder why?

  But this was not an evening to give in to curiosity. She headed straight for her room. Eleven was not that far off.

  • • •

  It was so dark in the conservatory that Nan could only see shadows. Pablo had been in the conservatory earlier that day with a compass, and had made what little preparations needed to be made; mostly deciding where they were all to stand. Now he arranged them all with the help of a dark lantern. “You, John, stand here,” he whispered, removing a clay pot he had used to mark the spot. “You, Mary, here. Señorita Nan, here, and Señorita Sarah, here. Señor Holmes, you will be opposite me. You form the point of one triangle, I the point of another, interlocking to make a star of six points.”

  “Is this relevant?” Holmes whispered. Nan couldn’t see his expression, but she fancied he had an eyebrow raised.

  “Si,” said Pablo. “Acoustics. Soft human bodies will resonate differently than the thin forms of plants or the iron frame of the conservatory. You know this; you know how an empty concert hall sounds significantly different from one that is full. We must take full advantage of the resonance between your violin and mine.”

  More gammon? She couldn’t tell from Pablo’s voice; he sounded completely in earnest.

  “Ah, of course,” Holmes murmured, sounding satisfied.

  Well, all that matters is that he does what he needs to do. It doesn’t matter that he believes or disbelieves in magic. He ought to be so busy concentrating on his part of the music that he won’t devote any of his mind to disbelieving, anyway.

  Not for the first time, she wondered if that had been Pablo’s plan all along, to give Holmes something he had to concentrate on so that his skepticism wouldn’t disrupt the delicate workings of the magic he, Mary, and John had worked up among the three of them. She knew, more or less, what it was intended to do—

  “Hush!” Pablo whispered urgently. “She comes!”

  Neville tensed on Nan’s shoulder; she felt his talons digging into her skin through the maid’s dress she had forgotten to take off.

  Too late for second thoughts now.

  16

  “WILLIE?” called Magdalena, in the darkness of the conservatory. “Willie!” She made a little song of the name, and Nan shivered. “Where are you, my darling! I hope you are not trying to frighten your Magda!” She laughed, and even the laugh was a kind of song, and beneath that song was power. There could be no doubt that Magdalena was using her abilities to manipulate, and only the fact that they had protection from the three Elemental Masters saved them from being played like puppets.

  Footsteps crunched on the graveled path, and Nan could hear the singer drawing nearer, step by step. Suddenly, there was a thunk, and Magdalena cursed in German under her breath. “Willie, some fool left—”

  “Now!” roared Pablo, and the conservatory erupted with light. Magdalena stood right in the middle of all of them, gowned and coiffed impeccably in a scarlet evening dress with a tight bodice cut low across the chest, tiny puff sleeves, and a long train. She must have come straight here from the drawi
ng room where the ladies were all gathered. She held up gloved hands to shelter her eyes from the blazing white light that surrounded her.

  The light came from them, or rather from the magic that Pablo, John, and Mary had invoked. There now were the two interlacing triangles, inscribed in white brilliance, on the floor of the conservatory. One triangle connected the Watsons and Pablo, the other connected Holmes and the girls. Trapped in the hexagon of light in the middle was Magdalena, and as she lowered her hands, her face registered only surprise and shock.

  Pablo already had his violin in playing position with a white bow poised above the strings; the moment after he shouted “Now!” he began the first notes of the Danse Macabre. Holmes followed flawlessly with the next, in answer to his opening phrase. The music rang strangely in Nan’s ears, as if there was music beneath the music, a tune she could not hear, only feel.

  Holmes had his eyes shut tight in concentration; Pablo’s eyes were open, focused on Magdalena.

  Now Magdalena lost her initial surprise; she crouched and hissed, her features becoming feral, like some strange creature you might expect to find in a deep jungle—not quite human, not quite reptilian. She made a dart at Pablo, but the incandescent line at her feet stopped her.

  She jerked back from it, and stared at it, astonished. “What is this?” she spat. “What are you doing, Sarasate? Is this some sort of joke? Because I am not finding it funny!”

  Pablo did not answer . . . but as he played on, something else out of the darkness did.

  Nan had seen ghosts before, when Sarah had given them form—but she’d never seen one that was on fire, rippling with pale green flames. It—it seemed to be wearing a nun’s habit—literally rose up out of the ground between Nan and Holmes, its mouth open in a silent scream. Then another did the same, another burning nun, this time between Sarah and John Watson. Then another, this time a burning priest, and another, an angry child, until there were six spirits ringing Magdalena, all of them with their eyes fixed on her, all of them concentrating every bit of their attention on her. A green-blue haze of light linked all of them; this was the barrier Mary Watson had told Nan to watch for, a sort of wall of magic that would keep Magdalena from leaving the circle, but would allow other spirits to enter from outside.

  The hexagram might keep her pent, but the thrice-cast circle will prevent her from escaping.

  But rather than being terrified, as Nan probably would have been in her place, this only seemed to infuriate the diva. She drew herself up to her full height, opened her mouth—and sang.

  She sang a single, pure note with no tremolo, straight at one of the spirits, a fat man in Georgian knee breeches who stood directly in front of Sarasate. And suddenly, the spirit looked as if he was attempting to hold his place against a strong wind. And more than that, the barrier at his position weakened; the blue-green light dimmed, and Nan sensed from the feral light in Magdalena’s eyes that this was exactly what she intended. They needed to hold her, and—do whatever it was that Pablo intended to do. All she needed to do to end their threat was to escape. If she could break out of the prison they had built to hold her, the simplest thing for her would be to run for the manor, and she would be completely safe from them forever.

  Of course, no one would believe her if she told them she’d been attacked by magicians—but no one would believe them if they claimed the prima donna was a magician herself. If she escaped, their only choice of action would be to flee. They would never get a second chance at stopping her, once she was warned against them. If they stayed, they’d be caught by the servants, and of all of them, only Pablo and Sarah had invitations to be on the property. And yes, Alderscroft could come up with another plan to deal with her, but it would never accomplish more than controlling the damage she had done already.

  Gritting her teeth, Nan willed strength into the spirit; she felt that peculiar tingling that meant the Celtic warrior within her was about to break through, and she let it. This was no time for half measures!

  That other she manifested with a snarl of triumph, and Neville gave an echoing scream. In time with the music, the warrior began to chant, and whatever it was she was invoking, it strengthened not only the spirit against whom Magdalena was exerting all her power, but the rest of the circle, too. The lines on the ground blazed up whiter, and the blue-green wall of light grew brighter.

  Magdalena’s song became a scream, and still the wall held, although all six spirits braced themselves against her invisible force to maintain it. And now Nan felt that force, too, exactly like a powerful storm wind trying to blow her over. She reached out blindly and somehow her hand touched the handle of a spade, which became a sword the moment her fingers closed on it. She drove the blade down into the earth at her feet and hung on, still chanting.

  Across from her, Sarah stood stock-still, eyes closed, hands spread out. Grey was on her shoulder, and at a glance from Nan, began echoing the words of Nan’s chant. Then Neville did the same, until the conservatory blazed with light, and reverberated with sound, the two musicians playing, and the three voices chanting in time with the music.

  This isn’t getting us anywhere, Nan thought, although she did not stop her chant. She can’t get out, but we can’t do anything to her—

  “Now, mi querido!” Pablo shouted over the music and the chanting. “Come to us now!”

  A shape of golden light so bright it brought tears to Nan’s eyes appeared behind Sarasate. It was human in general outline, but it was impossible to tell if it was male, female, or something between the two. It moved up beside the violinist, who continued to play, eyes fixed on Magdalena, wearing an expression of absolute concentration. It touched him briefly on the shoulder, then moved across the lines, past the spirit, to stand in front of him, between him and the diva.

  Magdalena broke off her scream of power with a gasp. Her lips moved, but nothing came out.

  The spirit passed through the wall of blue-green light and stood no more than a pace or two away from Magdalena. Magdalena stared at it, face expressionless with shock, pupils so contracted they were mere pinpoints. The singer had gone white to the lips, and looked as if she might faint.

  “No—” she said, a mere whisper. Then, suddenly gathering herself together, she roared out in a red-hot fury, “No! You are dead! Go back to the dead, where you belong!”

  Then she opened her mouth wide and . . .

  What came out was . . . Nan didn’t have a word for it. It wasn’t music.

  It was the screams of dying men, slaughtered in battle. It was the trumpets of a thousand angry stallions. It was high, thin cries of women in torment. It held the tumult of all the choirs that ever sang in honor of the gods of darkness and death and evil, shouting out the superiority of those they worshipped.

  It was a whisper so soft it was nothing more than a thread of sound. It was a deafening howl that shattered not only the ears, but the mind.

  It was pain. It was pleasure. It could lull you to sleep and stab you awake. It promised and betrayed in the same breath. It was impossible to withstand and impossible to yield to.

  The six ghosts all straightened up, turned their faces upward, and cried out their agony to the stars. The howls somehow blended with the sound Magdalena was making, even though nothing in this world ever could have blended with a thing like that.

  Nan clapped her hands over her ears and continued to chant, and somehow, in some way, she could still hear her chant and the music of the two violins, high and pure and holding out against that cacophonous chaos that emerged from Magdalena’s rage-twisted lips.

  More to the point, the sound had no effect on the other, the golden spirit. The thing stood, implacable, untouched, like a spear of golden ice.

  Magdalena redoubled her efforts.

  The blue-green wall flared up, so bright now it was hard to see Magdalena and her opponent through it. Nan continued to chant, hoarsely, wondering in
some place deep inside herself just how long this could go on.

  Dawn?

  Are we going to have to fight her until dawn?

  And then what? At dawn the ghosts would vanish, leaving Magdalena with the upper hand.

  Just as she thought that, the golden spirit moved. Slowly, almost too slowly to see, she closed the distance between herself and Magdalena. Magdalena’s eyes widened, and her expression took on a cast of panic. In a gesture of utter futility she tried to shove the spirit away from her, but of course, it was not a solid, material creature, and her hands passed right through it. She backed up a step. Then another. Then a third, and a fourth, and at the fifth step she found herself backed into the all-too-solid incandescent green of the barrier wall. The horrible, beautiful, indescribable sound she had been making cut off as she closed her mouth, ducked to the side, avoiding the spirit, and ran straight at Sarah. She was stopped by the wall of light, but she flattened herself on it, pounding on it with both fists, calling out Sarah’s name in tones of absolute desperation.

  Pablo and Holmes continued playing like a pair of madmen, but Nan and the birds stopped chanting.

  Magdalena redoubled her cries to Sarah. And in that cessation of chanting, Sarah opened her eyes and stared at directly at her.

  Magdalena slid to Sarah’s feet, arms upstretched to Sarah, imploring. “Let me go, Sarah! Let me out! I am sorry I tricked you, I am sorry I tried to part you from your friends, I am sorry I used you! I promise, I will leave this country, I will go back to Germany, no one will ever hear of me again, only please, do not leave me to her! Do not leave me to Johanna!”

  “I think,” Sarah said, in a slow, thoughtful voice. “It is not I you should be asking pardon of.”

  At this point, the golden spirit was breathing down Magdalena’s neck. The diva whirled to find it “face” to face with her. She screamed—and then it engulfed her.

  There was no longer a vaguely human-shaped form of golden light within the hexagon; there was a swirling, amorphous, golden whirlwind with a struggling human at its heart, a vague darkness in human shape that was all that could be seen of Magdalena.