The Wizard of London

by Mercedes Lackey

  He knew instinctively what she would call him, with her voice dripping with scorn. A “toff,” a “guv’nor,” a “stuffed shirt.” Someone who did nothing and consumed everything; who deserved nothing and helped himself to everything. Who had never actually earned anything he had gotten in life—

  He wanted to protest that he had, in fact, earned this place at the table, this glittering company, and the promise of power to come.

  Oh, yes, said those eyes in his memory, glittering with their own malicious pleasure. You’ve earned them, right enough. Enjoying them?

  Well, no—

  He could hear her laughter, and the raven’s contemptuous and dismissive quork.

  In fact, in a kind of ghostly echo, he heard them all night, whispering under the important conversation, a counter-melody of disdain.

  ***

  “I feel sorry for him, whoever he was,” Sarah said, as the two of them slipped into their nightdresses and turned down the bedclothes.

  They had been discussing the pompous and self-important man who had nearly ridden them both down this afternoon. Nan was still of the opinion that he had no right and no invitation to ride the meadow of Highleigh Court; that he had merely pretended to it. She had not liked him, not at all, and neither had Neville. It wasn’t just that he was an arrogant toff, it was that there was something very cold, something not right about him. As if someone had taken away his heart and put a clod of frozen earth where it should have been. He’d nearly trampled both of them, and not one word of apology! No, he was too busy showing two poor little girls how important a fellow he was.

  Never even asked if we was all right, she grumbled to herself.

  “Well, I don’t,” she replied, climbing into bed. “Not even a little bit. Hope that fancy nag of his throws him inter a mud puddle.”

  “Nan!” Sarah replied, but giggled.

  “Better yet,” Nan continued, starting to grin, “Inter a great big cow-flop. A fresh one. Still hot.”

  “Nan!” Now Sarah could not stop giggling, and that set Nan off, too. The thought of the fellow with his dignity in rags was just too much for her sense of humor. And once she started laughing at him, some of her anger at him cooled. Not that she was going to forgive him for almost trampling them and being rude, but she wasn’t quite as angry at him anymore.

  “So why d’ye feel sorry for ‘im?” she asked, as Sarah blew out the candle and the soft, warm darkness enveloped both of them.

  “Because—because he’s unhappy, and he knows why, but if he actually admits that he’s unhappy and why, he’ll have to admit that he’s wrong and he’s been wrong about everything,” Sarah said softly, as Nan heard the first soft whirring of bat wings from up near the ceiling.

  “Ev’thing?” Nan said, surprised. “That’s a lot.”

  “It’s his whole life,” Sarah said solemnly. “He made a wrong turn, and he’s never going to get it right unless he gives up most of what he’s done.”

  Whatever Sarah knew or had sensed that led her to that conclusion, it hadn’t been granted to Nan. Still, she didn’t doubt her friend. “Money?” Nan asked, not able to imagine anything in a grown-up’s life that was more important than that.

  “Not money, but—” Nan could almost hear Sarah groping for the words. “—I can’t explain it, but it’s all things he thinks are important and really aren’t. It’s like he’s throwing away real diamonds for great big pieces of glass.”

  “Huh.” Nan considered this. “Must’ve been some’un convinced ‘im those chunks uv glass was wuth something.”

  “It’s very sad, because he’s never going to be happy,” Sarah whispered, then sighed.

  “Well, he ain’t our problem,” Nan replied resolutely. “He ain’t our problem, and he ain’t gonna be. He ain’t no ghost and he ain’t no bad thought.”

  “No, he’s not,” Sarah agreed, sounding sad. “I wish I knew of a way I could help him, though. It kind of feels as if I ought to.”

  Crickets outside sang through their silence, and a moth flew in the window, wings white in the moonlight.

  “Why d’ye reckon yon Robin he’ped us out, ye think?” Nan asked.

  She figured by changing the subject, she would be able to get Sarah to talk about something other than that so-dislikable man, and she was right.

  “I think Robin likes us,” Sarah said at last, after a long moment of silence. “I’m not sure why. I think he likes Mem’sab too.”

  “I think ye’re right,” Nan replied, and sighed happily. “It’s a nice thing, ‘avin’ some’un like that like ye.”

  “I think he admires you, Nan,” Sarah replied, admiration in her own voice. “I know he thinks you’re brave.”

  “Eh, ‘e thinks you’re pretty brave, too!” Nan countered, but couldn’t help feeling a bit of pride at the thought. “I mean, you stood right up’t’ that shadow lady! Not many would ‘ave.”

  “They would if they knew it was the right thing to do,” came the soft reply out of the darkness.

  Nan thought about that as she drifted off to sleep. Sometimes it was hard being Sarah’s friend—because she would say things like that, things that part of Nan knew weren’t really true—or at least, that everything Nan had ever learned in her short life told her weren’t true. But then, just as she had made up her mind, another part would at least hope for the opposite, for Sarah’s words, and not Nan’s feelings, to be the right one. So part of her wanted to contradict Sarah, while the other part wanted to encourage her.

  Eh, what’s it hurt to let her think it? she finally decided, as sleep took her. She’s a queer little duck, and mebbe if she believes it long enough, it’ll ac’chully happen someday.

  A comforting thought, and a good one to carry into the night.

  14

  CRICKETS sang outside the window, and a bat flew into the room, patrolled for insects, and flew out again. Isabelle Harton relaxed in the embrace of her husband’s arms. While she was deeply enjoying this sojourn in what was the next thing to a castle, with far more servants than she could ever dream of employing herself, the pleasure was flawed by not having Frederick with her for most of the time. “Good gad, I have missed you,” she said, contentedly, and yet with some sadness, knowing that on Sunday night he would once again take the train back to London.

  She felt him smile in the darkness. “What a scandal!” he replied, contradicting his own words by pulling her closer. “Wives aren’t supposed to miss the carnal attentions of their husbands. They are supposed to endure them for the sake of children.”

  She chuckled. “And what idiot told you that?” she responded. “Not the Master, that’s for certain.”

  He laughed. “Something a well-meaning clergyman told a young officer a very long time ago, in an attempt to persuade the young officer that his pretty wife would be happier living in England. He swore that women would rather, on the whole, be left alone by men, and that she was merely being dutiful when she told him she didn’t want to leave.”

  “And what young officer was that?” she asked, curiosity piqued.

  He chuckled deep in his chest. She felt the sound vibrate through him and smiled. Of all of the things she loved about him, hearing him laugh was one of the best.

  “Myself, of course,” he said. “Who else?”

  She arched an eyebrow, though of course he would not be able to see it in the dark. “I was never pretty.” It was an old “disagreement.”

  “I thought you were. And I think you are beautiful now. Since I am the one who looks at your face more often than you do, I think I should be the one allowed to make the judgment.” The usual argument.

  She wasn’t going to win it. She never did. “I wish the business would run itself.” She sighed.

  She felt his hand stroking her hair. “And I wish the school would run itself, or that you and I could build a little hut on the beach of a tropical island and raise goats like Robinson Crusoe. But goatskins make dreadful gowns, or so I’m told.”

&nb
sp; “Smelly, anyway.” There were many things she could have talked to him about, but none of them were as important as simply being here in his arms, and luxuriating in the feeling that this was the best, the only place in the world for her, and that she would never have felt like this about anyone else. This was the still center of the whirling universe, where everything was at rest. In its own way, the jewel in the heart of the lotus, the place where love was, had been, and always would be. Buddhists, of course, would argue that point, preferring their way of detachment from the world. But on the whole, she preferred hers.

  So she would not spoil the moment with anything other than things that would make him smile. So she told him about Tommy’s latest misadventure until the bed shook with their laughter.

  ***

  Cordelia wished there was a way to look at “herself” in a mirror.

  It turned out that there was a way to turn the face of your soul-self into something other than a reflection of the real world “you.” She’d had to search through some excruciatingly boring manuscripts to find it, plowing with determination through things that ranged from absurd to outright duplicitous, but she had found it. She thought that she had done a creditable job, given the cryptically worded instructions. Fortunately she had done enough out-of-body work with David that she knew what his “self” looked like. It would have been a dreadful mistake to have appeared in something other than the chainmail and surcoat he habitually wore in that semblance.

  Perhaps it would be a wise choice to gradually have him wear a helm as well. That way she would have less chance of losing hold of the likeness of his face.

  Yes, that would be a good idea. It should be easy enough, a little suggestion that if out-of-body work was becoming hazardous, a helm might be in order, to remind the soul-self to keep its defenses up. It was a very good thing that what the avatar wore was often as variable as the personality within. David, the most conservative of mages, had been known to vary the outfitting of his own avatar to suit the occasion, now and again. No one would wonder that he had assumed a helmet, and he himself could implement the change without much thought.

  So the next part of the experiment could proceed as planned; to discover if one living soul could be used to push out another. The child that was silent was a weaker personality than the one that hummed. A dose of laudanum mixed with other drugs and a great deal of honey in its bedtime milk would ensure that its hold on its body was weaker still. There was a distinct advantage in that the second child’s spirit would be drawn more strongly to the body that rightfully belonged to it. That would simulate her own will driving her to inhabit David’s shell.

  After watching the two children sharply for an hour or so, she was satisfied that she had set up the best possible conditions. It did appear that the child about to be un-housed was another of the Peggoty sort, however. Unlike the other, which was at least learning to play with toys in the manner of a normal child, the boy just sat there staring vaguely at whatever object his nursemaid put in his hands, now and again turning it over and over and studying it, but otherwise showing no signs of real interest in it. And it was getting fat, in a pale and puffy sort of way, from inactivity. Clearly only the scant rations at the orphanage had kept it so slender.

  Useless in every way. Best she get rid of it now, as one would dispose of an unwanted puppy.

  But she also wanted to eliminate every thought of suspicion, so she went in and exclaimed about the child’s lassitude to the nursemaid.

  “Yes’m,” the little nursemaid agreed, bobbing a curtsy. “He don’t look right, and that’s a fact, Mum. But he being a foundling and all, they sometimes are sickly.”

  As if your brothers and sisters weren’t! Cordelia thought with amusement, knowing, as the maid did not know, that her mistress knew everything of note about her family, including her mother’s three miscarriages and five dead children. One in every two poor children died in infancy, and it was just too bad that Cordelia didn’t have a way to harvest or use those spirits.

  Ah well, perhaps the answer lay in her researches. Now she had more than one lifetime to look into it, and she no longer felt quite such a sense of urgency.

  But for a show of concern, she sent for the apothecary—not the doctor, that would have been an excess—who shook his head and opined that he did not know of too many orphanage children able to thrive even in the best of situations. “Bad blood, My Lady,” he pontificated. “Mothers and fathers both usually addicted to gin, opium, hashish—bad blood there and no mistake. Sometimes it’s just as well that they don’t thrive.”

  She nodded and the nursemaid nodded, as he prescribed a tonic, a bottle of which he produced with such readiness that she knew he had brought it here on purpose to sell it to her. As was appropriate, however, he did not offer it to her, nor did he name a price. He gave it to the nursemaid, who thanked him. A bill would be forthcoming, of course, and the housekeeper would deal with it.

  There. The stage was set for tonight.

  When the apothecary had left, she waited for the nursemaid to take the boys off to their bath, and confiscated the tonic, which might be good or ill, might even be the same ingredients as her own potion, only weaker, but did not suit her purposes. She poured the contents down a drain, and substituted her own mixture. The strength of what she poured in there would have put a grown man to sleep, much less a small child.

  Then she waited.

  She had been forced to make do now that it was summer and she could not expect an ice-laden wind to do her work for her, replacing the cold of winter with drugs and powerful magic. Instead of arranging for the window to be opened, when the nursemaid was safely asleep (thanks to a heavy dose of laudanum in her tea) she made her way quietly into the nursery where the two boys lay on their cots.

  With her arms outstretched, and hands cupped upward, she silently mouthed the words of invocation, and felt power drain from her in response. A chill, white mist formed slowly over the two cots, and settled over the two boys. This was called “The breath of the snow dragon,” and was the opposite side of the “breath of the dragon” invocation used by Fire Mages. That brought a furnace heat; this summoned the wind off the glaciers itself.

  When she was satisfied that both boys were chilled to the bone and to all intents and purposes very near death, she closed her eyes and reached with spirit hands toward the strong one’s body.

  The spirit already drifted a little above it; now she had to detach it altogether.

  The incantation she used was one that would have made any good and decent Elemental Mage cover his ears in horror. She had found it in an ancient book that allegedly contained spells dating from the time of Atlantis. Whether that was the truth or not, this was the only one that actually accomplished what it was said to do.

  The silver cord connecting soul with body shattered. She snatched up the spirit and shoved it toward the second boy’s body, at the same time repeating her blasphemous words.

  The first child was already trying to reestablish a connection with a physical body, the end of the “cord” drifting about like the groping tentacle of a cephalopod. As she had hoped, because his spirit was the stronger of the two, it made the connection with the body that had originally belonged to it before the second boy re-anchored himself. The soul-self sank into the body, as the displaced ghost drifted toward the empty husk.

  But before it could reach its former home, she had summoned a shield around it, preventing it from entering, and making it into one of her servants; this was a bit of magic she had long been familiar with and had used innumerable times. The glow of the shield surrounded the spirit and shrank, forming a kind of “skin,” then faded.

  Now it was hers. It could neither move back into the vacant body, nor go anywhere else. The spirit was sealed to the earthly plane, unless someone could be found to open a passage into the Other Side for it, or until it willed one open for itself.

  It looked very like Peggoty had, a gray-white sketch in the air of an androg
ynous child figure, as it opened its hollow eyes to stare at her. “Go and play,” she told it, and it turned away from her and drifted off, through the wall. It would linger somewhere about, just as Peggoty had, until she summoned it. Unlike Peggoty, it probably could be summoned by whatever means she chose without frightening it unduly.

  And then she felt it, the triumph, the glee. It had worked! By heavens, it had worked!

  And she allowed herself the indulgence of a feral smile, unconcerned, now, for its effects on her face, the possibility of wrinkles or creases. Because very soon now, it would not matter.

  Not at all. Not when she could discard this useless body like the outworn thing that it was, for a fine new replacement, a replacement that was in all senses superior in every way to the original.

  ***

  David Alderscroft could not sleep.

  It had been a productive, but profoundly boring day. He knew that he should feel pleased about it, but all he could manage was a weary and resigned sense that he had accomplished what he had come for. Although the eminent politicians here were unclear as to why he wanted a new minister appointed to the Cabinet and exactly what the minister would be representing, it was a virtual certainty that he would get to be that minister.

  A Minister of Magical Sciences, although that, of course, was not what he would actually be called. And no more than a handful of people would ever know that this was, in fact, the purview of the office.

  It was more than time for such a Ministry, however. More than time for the Elemental Masters to step forward and put their hands on the reins of government. Too much secrecy had been going on over the decades, and at some point, without the cooperation of the government, that secrecy was going to fall apart.

  He paced the length of the terrace in the darkness as he considered the night’s work. None of the men here tonight would ever know that this “Ministry of Esoteric Sciences” was in fact about magic. Only the Cabinet and the Prime Minister would be told this. But revealing the knowledge at a high level virtually ensured that it would never be revealed at a lower level.