“I have lived there,” Lapthorn said cautiously.
“I have relatives from there,” Samona said. “It would please me very much if you would walk me to the Buttery and tell me something of the appearance of that famous port.”
“Nothing would please me better,” Lapthorn said. ‘‘The harbor of Plymouth . . .” He began describing the place as they walked along.
* * *
As he approached the house, Amer felt a chill come over him. Waves of cold seemed to emanate from the doorway, and although there was no wind, Amer could feel the big old elm on his left peer at him as he came up the winding pathway that shielded the house from the main road. There was a hum and buzz of unseen things in the air.
A blazing log flew at him, although he could not see where it came from, or who threw it. He ducked just in time. Other blazing bits of wood came at him. Amer dodged them and hastily recited the version of Albertus Magnus’ invocation which Robin Goodfellow had corrected for him, with the shin substituted for the bet. The shower of sparks died away. He tried the door. It opened to his touch.
The place was dark—it was just after sunset. The fading day cast oblong shapes of old gold through the windows. A low fire burned untended in the hearth. Somewhere a grandfather clock ticked with an ominous, syncopated sound. The place was as quiet as a mouse holding its breath. Amer walked in and glided ghostlike down a long hallway, with fading slabs of sunlight lighting his way. It occurred to him that the valley of the shadow of death probably began in sunlight.
And then he was faced with a door. He turned the knob.
It was locked. Albertus’ formula, repeated again, served to unlatch it. Or perhaps Lapthorn hadn’t locked it properly in the first place. Amer knew you could never be too certain about what caused what. But then he was inside the room, and he saw sitting on a chair before him the idiot boy, Douglas.
“You’re the boy, aren’t you?” Amer said.
“Who the hell are you?” It was a surprisingly deep voice that came from the boy’s mouth. A masculine voice, intelligent and of some years’ experience.
“Who are you?” Amer asked.
“Caspardutis, so I am called in this cycle.”
“You are an elemental?”
“That I am.”
“Why do you occupy the body of this child?”
“Because I was lured here.”
“Lured? How!”
The idiot turned his head slowly. His pale eyes regarded Amer with intelligent curiosity. Then he laughed.
“You do have a lot of nerve to invade Lapthorn’s house this way. Or did you kill him beforehand?”
“With all your powers, wouldn’t you know if I’d done that?”
“My powers are real enough,” Caspardutis said, somewhat testily. “But I needn’t waste them on a creature like Lapthorn.”
“You call him a creature. Yet you serve him.”
“Yes, I must. He enticed me with his spells. I was in no danger then, just curious to see what manner of man tried to attract the attention of an elemental, and to perhaps provide him with a mischief. Then, to my surprise, he flashed a symbol at me. It was a copy of the Seal of Solomon, not a very good likeness, really, and rather smudged—it was a rubbing, you see—but it was enough to trap me instantly. And so I must do his bidding for a time.”
“How long a time?”
“We dwellers of the ether don’t reckon by years. But we know when an account is settled.”
“Your being here has attracted a lot of bad luck to this town.”
Caspardutis shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“You could get out of here and not come back. Unless you enjoy playing fetch for Lapthorn.”
“Me, enjoy it? Why, I’d rather rip the man’s guts out, slowly, inch by inch. But as I told you, I’m bound to obey his orders.”
“What has he asked you for?”
“Gems, precious stones. It’s creating a lot of disturbance in some other realms, I can tell you, because I have to get those gems from somewhere. It’s downright embarrassing, since I have to steal them, and stealing is no more approved among elementals than it is among men.”
“Suppose I could find a way to set you free?”
“I’d take it most cheerfully. But you cannot.”
“But if I could?”
“As I said, I’d take it.”
“What is the first thing Lapthorn says when he summons you?”
“ ‘Come out, Caspardutis.’ That is what he says. There’s a great deal more to it than that, of course, spells and such, but that’s what it always comes down to.”
“And what do you do?”
“I drop whatever it is I’m doing and come into the pentagram where he has placed this child’s body.”
“Has anyone told you to come into the pentagram?”
“No. But it seems reasonable enough.”
“But you are not specifically ordered to do so? Your going into the pentagram is your own assumption or interpretation of his command?”
“I suppose it is, if you look at the matter with a solicitor’s eye.”
“With what other sort of eye should one look at the details of a contract?”
“Well ... All right, I take your point. But what does it matter if I appear within the pentagram or across the room or even in the stable?”
“None that I can see. You can respond to his summons by materializing as far away as you like, or as near.”
“Near? What are you hinting at, Master Amer?”
“Yes, what indeed!” a voice thundered from the doorway.
“Now you’re for it,” Caspardutis said. “I’m getting out of here!”
The idiot’s eyes went blank.
* * *
Lapthorn strode into the room, tall, scarecrow-thin, with dull black hair falling over his eyes. The scar on his cheek was livid with sudden anger.
“You’d come uninvited into my house, would you?”
“That is the case,” Amer said.
“And you would learn my secrets, Master Crafter?”
“I have found out what I need to know. You have enslaved this child, Douglas, making him a conduit, a receptacle, for the elemental who calls himself Caspardutis. That, sir, is against the laws of God and man. Furthermore, you have enriched yourself at the expense of the citizens of Rock Harbor, since your diabolic work has attracted a host of evil spirits, and called forth a deal of bad luck upon the town. You are responsible for several deaths here, sir.”
Lapthorn shrugged and grinned. ‘‘These petty people don’t count, my dear Amer. Ordinary folk are always at risk when magic is afoot. Yon know this very well; you are a warlock yourself. We serve the same master.”
“Untrue,” Amer said. “I have never served Satan and never will. I am of the ancient and honorable guild of alchemists. We are investigators of hidden principles of the universe, not practitioners of black magic.”
“Well, then,” Lapthorn said, “so much the worse for you. If you won’t serve black magic, sir, the Art will serve you, as it has already served your slut of a wife!”
“Samona? What have you done to her?”
“She tried to lure me away from my house, to give you time to enter and set up whatever feeble mischief you may have at your disposal. But I saw through your transparent scheme, and have dealt with her as a beautiful but treacherous troll should be dealt with.”
Lapthorn chuckled and turned away. Amer felt a flood of rage rise in his heart. If this unkempt degenerate had touched a hair of Samona’s head—At the thought, a blood-red mist rose before his eyes. An uncanny shriek like tearing brass came from his throat. He launched himself at Lapthorn like a mountain cougar—
And found himself a moment later flying through the air, to land in a heap in the far corner of
the room.
Shakily he got to his feet. He was glad to note that he had broken no limbs in the violent fall. But he felt suddenly helpless; his psychic defenses were scattered by the intensity of the blow. And he remembered an adage that was as true for magic as it was for science: every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
He realized he’d been tricked. Lapthorn had sought successfully to provoke him, getting him to launch a blind and unplanned assault. Lapthorn’s powers had enabled him to turn the force of the attack back on its perpetrator.
Now Amer’s psychic force was spent. It would take him: hours, days, to restore himself. Lapthorn, his enemy, wasn’t going to give him enough time.
Then the front door creaked. Both men turned to look as it slowly swung open, letting in a sigh of evening breeze.
And Samona came in.
Cool and beautiful, neatly and modestly dressed, every hair in place, she advanced into the room.
“So, Master Lapthorn,” she said sweetly, “you did not choose to wait for me while I got my shawl?”
“As soon as I was out of your presence;” Lapthorn said, “I saw through your scheme and hurried home. And I found this.” He gestured at Amer.
“You have been ungentle with him,” Samona remarked, crossing the room to stand by her husband.
“I’ve only begun. When I’m finished I’ll serve you, too, mistress of trickery.”
Samona put her hand on Amer’s shoulder. Amer could feel the pulse of vitality pass from her to him. He straightened, feeling strength return to him, But it was not enough.
Lapthorn surveyed the two, frowning. He drew back slightly.
“I could deal with you both myself. But why should I bother, when I command that which will harrow the flesh from your bones and carry your souls down to the special Hell that awaits those who try to thwart a magician? Caspardutis, come to me!”
The room was very quiet. There was no sound but the soft tick-tock of the grandfather clock. Douglas, the idiot boy, sat passive and dull-faced in his little chair. No trace of spirit animated his face or small body.
“Caspardutis! Do you hear me? I command you by Solomon’s Seal to come to me this instant!”
Lapthorn stood in front of the pentagram, stretched to his full height, his hands upraised and head thrown back. There, was a sound of crackling energies. The low-burning fire in the hearth flared up and cast blue and green flames. Lapthorn staggered for a moment, then regained his balance.
There was a strange look on his face, a look of alarm that swiftly changed to terror. “What .have you done?” he cried. Then his hands clutched at his temples. “Get out of there!” he shrieked.
Samona turned to Amer. “My dear, what is happening?”
“Just watch, my love,” Amer said, patting her hand.
Lapthorn clutched at his head and commenced to stagger around the room, bent almost double. He stumbled into a table, recoiled and knocked over a chair, almost tripped over it, recovered and began to turn in a frenzied hunched circle, like a rabid dog trying to devour its tail. His frantic circling brought him against a tall cupboard filled with china. He knocked it over, then fell to the floor where he lay amid the shards of porcelain, thrashing about like a beached trout, his hands tearing at his hair and his boot heels drumming frantically against the planks. Then his body gave one final spasm and lay still.
Samona asked, “Did you contrive to feed him poison, my love? For I know not else how you produced this reaction.”
“Samona!” Amer cried. “Could you actually believe I’d poison a man in his own home?”
“I know you did something,” Samona said.
“I did but acquaint Caspardutis, his captive elemental, with a possible loophole in the terms of his possession. It was not poison, or even witchcraft, or alchemy either, but a lawyerly quibble that I suggested.”
Lapthorn’s body stirred. Presently he sat up.
“It was a good trick,” he said. His voice was that of Caspardutis. “When I went away before, I considered your words. I saw there was indeed a lack of precision in the terms laying out how I was to present myself when Lapthorn called. But if you hadn’t pointed it out to me, Master Amer, I would still be running to the ends of the universe for his gemstones.”
“I don’t understand,” Samona said. “How could it matter where you appeared when he called you?”
“Since the position was not specified,” Caspardutis said, “I could appear anywhere at all—even in Lapthorn’s own mind. That is what I did, and there was a struggle for possession of the body.”
“Which you won,” Samona said.
Caspardutis in Lapthorn’s body bowed gracefully.
“And now what will you do?” Amer asked. “Will you continue to live on Earth as Lapthorn?”
“I shall not!” Caspardutis replied. “I have important business on the ethereal plane. I’ve been away from it too long as it is. I but pause to thank you, Amer, and now I’ll discard this carcass and return to my true home.”
“A moment!” Amer said. “When you depart, Lapthorn will return to himself and be able to call you forth again. Remember, he still commands you by the Seal of Solomon, if he can but regain himself.”
“True,” Caspardutis said. “Your grasp of the matter is incisive, sir! Again I am beholden to you. What a fine mind was lost in Hell when you failed to join the Devil’s forces. But I see a solution. Farewell!”
Lapthorn’s body gave one convulsive shudder and lay still. When Amer bent over him, he could feel no heartbeat.
“I had not expected that,” he said. “Elementals don’t often kill, no matter what the provocation.”
“Nor has he this time,” Samona said. “Look!”
In the corner, the idiot Douglas was stirring. His hands fluttered in front of his face like frightened pigeons. His mouth twisted as though he would speak but could not. His eyes were strained open, and the expression in them was baleful.
“It is Lapthorn inside there!” Samona cried.
“Yes, it is,” Amer said. “He has been well and truly served by the magic he practiced. Equal and opposite reactions! As he served others, so is he served. He made the idiot a vehicle for a spirit, and now he must live within the idiot. And he’s powerless. Caspardutis has sealed the idiot’s lips and he cannot speak.”
“But what are we going to do with him?” Samona asked.
“What do you mean, do?”
“I’m referring to the idiot child. No matter who lives inside him, he must be fed and clothed and sheltered. Who is to do that?”
Amer considered the question soberly. “My dear, that is for the town council and the witches’ coven to decide. We have done enough. The rest is up to them. Come, it is time we went home.”
“Yes,” Samona said. “I will make us some dinner. It has been a hungry night’s work.”
“We will eat and pack,” Amer said, “and prepare Amy for a journey.”
“Where are we going?”
“Did you not hear me say before? Home! To our place on the mountainside! We’ve had enough of civilization for a while.”
Anno Domini 1694
JACOB CRAFTER thought there was no greater penalty for being nine years old than having to face complex sums. The master of the schoolhouse had given him pages of mathematical problems to do before morning, and he couldn’t!
He couldn’t! He stared at the numbers on the slate, trying to extract some sense from them, but they just blurred into insensibility before his eyes. There was a passage of Latin to learn, too. Jacob went back and forth distractedly between the Latin book and the slate until he felt like crying.
“I cannot learn this, Father,” Jacob complained to Amer. “It goes past me as quickly as the wind.” He whipped up the pages of his book with an impatient hand.
“It is nothing you do not know,”
Amer Crafter said, regarding calmly the small boy who looked so much like him. He smoothed the pages, and set his finger down beside a phrase. “Now, read this out to me.”
Following his father’s fingertip, Jacob read the passage aloud, and translated the words a sentence at a time.
“There,” smiled Amer, patting Jacob’s head. “You did it.”
“But I couldn’t before,” Jacob said. “Why not?”
“I’ve been watching you to determine that very fact,” Amer said. “You are not concentrating, son. You skip from fact to fact like a bee visiting flowers. Behave more as an ant does, carefully stowing food away in his nest one grain at a time.”
Jacob stared at the page of Latin and shook his head despairingly. “But my thoughts skip so, I can’t keep hold of one for more than a breath.”
“You need to learn how to focus.” Amer felt in his pocket and drew forth a pair of stones. “Look here, son. See what I found in my explorations today.” Weighing them carefully with an eye, he handed Jacob one of them.
“Where did this come from?” the boy asked, studying the rock closely. It was about half the size of his hand. Part of it twinkled in the afternoon light coming in through the window, and part of it didn’t.
“From the river’s bed,” Amer replied, taking it from him and turning it over to show him its features. “I have been studying its patterns. See how it is banded with color?”
“It is a wonder of God’s work, Father, to paint such fine lines,” Jacob assured him.
Amer smiled. “But it was not made all at once into a small, rounded stone, son. Haven’t you observed the layers of color in the land? They were set down so, over many years, through the changes of weather and season, until each line above represented a time later than the one below it.”
“To be sure, it is a wonder,” said Jacob. “This one is edged with quartz, and here’s its brother, broken from the same geode.”
“Well observed, son.” Amer was struck suddenly with an idea. “Here, Jacob, take it. Let this stone aid you in your lessons. When you need to concentrate, stare at this part, where the bands of color focus into a small spot. Do not let your eyes wander, and hold as still as you can, and your mind will unfold.”
The Crafters Book One Page 9