The Wizard of London

by Mercedes Lackey

  Within moments, they were solid enough to hammer nails with. They were lovely in this form, but as soon as they began to thaw, they would turn into a blackened mess that the maids would have to clean up. It would take them hours, especially if any of the ruined, rotting blossoms dropped on the tabletop and marred the finish. They would be waxing and polishing half the day.

  The gesture didn’t appease her wrath, but it did vent some of her feelings.

  For the quarry had escaped! Before she could do anything about those wretched children, someone else had the unmitigated gall to invite them to his estate for the summer! She had no idea who, nor where it was. Her agents had been unable to get anything out of the few reticent servants left, and efforts to follow Frederick Harton had all ended in failure. She hired different agents, to the same end. It was immensely frustrating. The man was utterly ordinary, a commonplace soldier-turned-merchant. To be sure, he had some occult power, but it could not possibly be a match for that of an Elemental Master!

  She was left to pursue the quarry through the only route she had left: Isabelle Harton’s friends among the female Elemental Masters. She was forced to be extremely circumspect about it, for she did not want Isabelle to get wind of the fact that she was hunting for her and wonder why.

  Her rage, like all her emotions, was icy and calculating. It was a force to be conserved and put to good use. And it occurred to her suddenly that there might be one more way of finding those wretched children. She could use her rage to best effect with it right now. But it would take exceedingly careful work if she was not to tip her hand.

  She closed her eyes and took several long, slow, deep breaths, then rose, and went to her workroom.

  She closed and locked the door behind herself, and sat down before her worktable. No Ice Wurms to be summoned today… but she left a single gray feather on the table in front of her.

  She sat in her crystal throne, folded her hands in her lap, and began to still her body.

  Her heartbeat slowed, her breathing became shallow and almost imperceptible, and within the half hour, anyone looking at her would have thought her dead, or near it.

  In this state, it was easy to slip across the barrier between the living and the dead. Not far, but enough across the line to shadow-walk. Enough to talk to the ghost she herself had created, though she could not speak to nor see any of the others that she had no hand in making. Enough to be able to call one of her little servants to her, or to see them, enough to travel to a limited extent herself, in spirit, though she could not move far from her body.

  She had a particular child ghost in mind, a dream-raptured little thing who in life had been mute, and in death was just as mute. If Isabelle caught the ghost, she could interrogate it all she liked; she would learn nothing from it.

  The waif actually knew she was dead, but did not care. She had never seen the inside of church or chapel in her entire life, and so had no expectation of any sort of afterlife. What she did know was that she was no longer hungry, thirsty, or cold. This was a distinct improvement over her lot when she had been alive. While it was true that spirits saw the living world but dimly, as if they wandered about in a London “pea-soup” fog, this did not seem to trouble little Peggoty in the least. She had never owned a toy, she had never slept in a bed, she had never had a permanent roof over her head, so the lack of them did not trouble her either. She had been brought to one of Cordelia’s “shelters” dying of starvation and tuberculosis, and while it might have been possible to prolong her life, Cordelia had simply taken advantage of the situation by putting the mite out of her misery in the usual way. Since then, she had been useful for simple tasks that did not require much thinking.

  As nearly as Cordelia was able to tell, Peggoty passed her days as a ghost in the same way that she had passed them as a living child—wrapped in some strange dream world, half-awake and half-asleep. What it was that she daydreamed about, no one would ever know, for she lacked the means to tell them.

  Whatever it was, she seemed content to “live” there in her daydreams between times when Cordelia needed her.

  In that half world of mist and shadow, Cordelia moved, cutting through the mist to wherever it was in the townhouse that Peggoty had put herself. She could have summoned the child to her, of course, but she knew from past experience that would frighten the waif, who associated being “called” with punishment. Normally, this would not be a problem, but if Isabelle’s pupil was somehow able to see and interact with Peggoty, the last thing that Cordelia wanted was for Peggoty to cling to that little girl for protection.

  No, Cordelia wanted Peggoty to be her usual dreamy self, with nothing to cause alarm in her behavior. That way, the worst that would happen if she were discovered would be that Isabelle would succeed in sending Peggoty on to the next world—

  Wherever, whatever the “next world” was for Peggoty. She was such a passive little spirit that “the next world” might only consist of a brighter version of the fog of dreams she moved through now.

  Passing through the real world in her ghostly equivalent, Cordelia found Peggoty physically haunting the attic of her town house. The child stood dreamily at the window staring at what to her must have been a sea of gray, marked only by vague, shadowy forms, appearing, disappearing, looking more like ghosts to her than she did to the world of the living. Even here, halfway into the spirit world as Cordelia was, the child was nothing more than a wispy wraith, a sketch in the air of transparent white on dark gray. Although her head, hands, and chest were detailed enough, the rest of her was blurred, as if the drawing was incomplete and unfinished.

  “Peggoty,” said Cordelia, in her sweetest, gentlest voice.

  The child turned and looked up at her mistress with large, dark eyes in a colorless face, a face thin with years of constant near-starvation, and as expressionless as a tombstone. Those eyes seemed to look through her, and Cordelia, although she was used to that look, still felt just a fraction or two colder than she had a moment before.

  “Peggoty, I need you to go and find someone,” Cordelia continued. “It is another little girl.”

  There was one thing that the Berkeley Square misadventure had produced; a handful of small feathers, gray and black. Peggoty could not touch them, of course, but she could get a kind of “scent” from them, and follow it the way a bloodhound would follow an actual scent.

  Of course, Cordelia could have used the feathers to locate the girls with magic—had they not been protected by Masters of all four Elements. Cordelia made no mistake in underestimating her opponents just because they were women. They were, in fact, rather more likely to be supremely competent than not.

  Any magical probe would be met by alarms, and if she was very unlucky, the instant response from whoever was responsible for setting up the Fire Wards. Cordelia knew that she was good, but she was not good enough to erase her tracks before another Master could identify her. Her magical “signature” was quite unique.

  But a spirit, especially a harmless little thing like Peggoty, could slip in and out without ever being noticed.

  She led Peggoty to her workroom, drifting through the walls, where she had left one of the tiny feathers on the table, and Peggoty’s big eyes rested on it. “The little girl I want you to find has a bird, and this is one of its feathers. If you find the bird, you’ll find the girl. I want you to go and find her, and when you do, come back here and show me where she is. Can you do that?”

  Peggoty nodded, slowly, her eyes fixed on the tiny feather as she “read” whatever it was that told her where it had come from. Then, without looking again at Cordelia, the wraith turned in the air and floated silently through the wall.

  Cordelia sighed, and with a mental wrench, brought herself straight back into her own body again.

  This would take time, but Peggoty did not need to sleep, did not even tire, and was not easily distracted once she had been set a task. Perhaps the children enjoyed being given tasks as a change in the unvarying condition o
f their lives. It was difficult to tell, especially with one like Peggoty, who had never been a normal child.

  Of course, the annoying thing was that none of this would have been needed if Cordelia had just been born a man.

  She rose carefully from her chair—carefully, because after a session like this she was rather stiff—and left her workroom. After the chill of that room, the summer warmth felt like the sultry breath of a hothouse in July, and she winced. Burgeoning growth… meant burgeoning decay.

  There had been another tiny line in her face again today, near the corner of her eye. She had preserved her beauty for so long—but even magic could not hold time back forever, it seemed.

  Soon people would stop wondering if David was her lover and start wondering if David was her son.

  It was enough to make her break into a rage, but rages were aging, and she had already indulged in one today.

  If she had been born a man, no one would think twice about wrinkles and gray hair. In fact, such signs of aging would have been marks of increased wisdom and she would have more respect, not less, for possessing them.

  Galling, to have to depend on someone else for the power she should rightfully have had on her own. And doubly galling to see David making his own decisions, without consulting her, as he had been doing more and more regularly of late.

  She hated summer. She hated the heat, the unrestrained growth of nature. She hated being forced to relocate to that wretched house on the Thames just so she could continue to attract the right people to her parties. She hated the relaxation of etiquette that summer brought, although the relaxation of conversation was useful, very useful—but the same relaxation could be brought about with the proper application of fine spirits and a warm room.

  It was far, far more difficult to collect children to make into her ghostly servants in the summer. Sleeping in alleys and staircases, even on rooftops and in doorways was no longer such a hardship in summer. It was easier to find food; things spoiled by the heat were tossed out all the time. Haunting the farmers’ markets brought plenty of bruised and spoiled fruit and vegetables. They didn’t come to her recruiters, and it was harder to summon the cold to kill them.

  She stood at the window, looking out unseeing at the street just beyond her walls.

  It was such a waste, too… those lives, those years that she could use, that youth she needed, all going for nothing. There was no way to capture that youth and transfer it to someone else, and even if she could, there still remained the insurmountable barrier of her sex. As long as she was a woman, she would never be taken seriously enough to achieve any kind of power in her own name. She breathed in the scent of summer life, green and warm, and hated it. From hour to hour we ripe and ripe, and from hour to hour we rot and rot, and thereby hangs a tale, Shakespeare had said. Ripe turned to rot all too soon, but sooner for women than men.

  And it was a bit too late now to try masquerading as a man. Even if she wanted to. It would take far too long to establish that male persona in the position to which she had gotten David. The door of opportunity was slowly closing.

  Her hand clenched. Unfair, unfair!

  If only she could somehow become David, to control him directly instead of in this maddening, roundabout fashion! After all, what had he done with his life on his own? Reorganized that silly little Master’s Circle of his! And of what use was that?

  If only—

  And at that thought, her mind stopped.

  She mentally stood stock still to examine that thought again.

  If only she could become David.

  Was it possible?

  Was it desirable?

  The answer to that second question was an unequivocal yes. It was very desirable. It wasn’t as if she had gotten any great use from her femininity in ages. Rather, it was something to be suppressed, as was evidence of her intelligence. If she was a man—if she was David—in order to masquerade as a man she would have to sacrifice what was amusingly called a “love life.” There was no way she would be able to simulate lovemaking as a man. But she would be living a life no less chaste than she was now. It was no great sacrifice to give up something she wasn’t “enjoying” in the first place. And in its place, she would get that access to power she craved, and the respect of those to whom she could display her full and unfettered intelligence.

  Oh, yes, definitely desirable.

  Was it possible?

  She turned, unseeing, and sat down on the fainting couch at the window to think.

  There was a moment when she collected her ghostly servants that the body was still alive, but soulless. The cold kept it preserved at that moment. If, while the body was still in that state, she could transfer her own self to it—

  No one had ever done such a thing. As far as she knew, no one had ever tried. But she felt herself trembling with excitement at the very idea that it could be done at all.

  She should not try this herself, not yet. She should try it with two of the children. None of her existing spirit servants, no; they were too useful and she needed most of them where they were. But perhaps, if she could find two children, very much alike so that they themselves would not be aware that the bodies had been switched, she could test it out without risking anything. Because she should try a switch first, before trying a substitution.

  Then if a switch worked, she could try disposing of the first spirit before inserting the second. It would probably be useful if she could find a child with a fierce will to live, unlike her usual recruits whose hold on life was already tenuous. Yes…

  And then, when she was certain she had the method honed and refined—

  She could even picture it in her mind’s eye. Inviting David to a late supper. Wine and brandy and perhaps a dose of opiates. Sending him up to bed—then slipping into the room when he was too deeply asleep to feel the cold, opening the window, and calling the Wurms just to be sure that it was cold enough.

  The real trick would be to warm up the body quickly enough after she inhabited it; if she did not, she would die. That would require some physical means. Tricky, tricky. Perhaps—yes. The timing would be crucial, but she could do all this just before the maid was to enter the room to awaken her guest and ask how he wanted his breakfast. The maid would find the cold room and the cold body—but still breathing—and summon help. Only later would they find Cordelia’s shell. Yes, indeed, tricky, but it could be done.

  Yes, that would be a good plan, further made valuable by having witnesses that nothing worse than a mania for cold, fresh air had “killed” Cordelia herself and imperiled David.

  And then there would be no more troubles over controlling David. She would be David. She could rewrite her will, leaving everything she owned to David as well, so that when her old body was found, she would lose nothing of what she had gained.

  And then, when age caught up with the David body, she could find another protégé to school, and repeat the plan. Perhaps a girl this time; perhaps by that point it would be possible for a woman to wield power in her own right. But if not—look far enough and she could find a naïve young male Fire Magician, probably among the disadvantaged, hopefully without the inconvenient burden of parents, with whom she could repeat the process. Why not? Childless men took on protégés all the time. If anything, people would think how wise she was to have done so. The estate would have to go to some collateral line, of course, but the bulk of the money and material goods that were unencumbered could go to anyone. Herself, of course.

  She would be immortal. She would have all the benefits of age, and none of the drawbacks. David’s Powers were different. Instead of the weak Power of Air behind the Power of Ice, she would have the immense strength of Fire.

  If it worked.

  And that was the first step. She must find out if it could work, then perfect the procedure until it was faultless.

  And this would be all the more reason to find those children and eliminate them; David knew about them now, and knew what they could do. If she made
him into a wandering spirit, he would certainly go straight to them to expose her.

  There was a great deal of work ahead of her. Fortunately, she had never been afraid of work.

  Fortunate for her, at least.

  12

  SARAH had an unfinished daisy wreath in her lap, but she wasn’t working on it. Nan, whose talents did not run to making wreaths and flower chains, had been splitting grass stems into strings, and by now had more strings than Sarah could ever possibly need.

  Nevertheless, she kept splitting, because it was a way to help her concentrate. She and Sarah were having a “discussion,” and Sarah was winning.

  “I think we should try it,” said Sarah. Her normally sweet face was set in an expression that Mem’sab would probably call “mulish.”

  Ever since they had helped to determine that the old well had been haunted by nothing more sinister than bad memories, Sarah had wanted to investigate the bridge, which had given off the same sort of unpleasant aura. Nan was not so sure this was a good idea, and the oddest thing was, this was a complete reversal of their normal roles. Usually, it was Sarah who was the cautious one.

  Then again, it hadn’t been Sarah who had been the one to experience those old memories either. Maybe that was what was making the difference this time.

  An’ I don’t get too sympathetic ‘bout her havin’ ghosts move in…

  It was no use turning to the birds for advice either. Both Grey and Neville had responded with the mental equivalent of a helpless shrug. Nan got the feeling that neither of them felt as if they had enough information to give a good answer. Like Nan, they didn’t like the idea, but they had no good reason to oppose it.

  Still, on the other hand, Nan was also tempted. It felt as if this was something she ought to be doing. They were only going to investigate. If there was anyone or anything bound to Earth there, surely Mem’sab and Sahib ought to know about it. And if there wasn’t, then the nasty feelings ought to be cleaned up and Mem’sab and Agansing ought to know about it. Nasty feelings could affect people that were sensitive to them, and might cause a mischief.