Some kind of hybrid, then.
Just his luck.
And now the thing was airborne, and climbing in pursuit. He dropped—the cockerel was not more than passably aerodynamic—and struck for its back, its wing, its lung. The breast was armored, under the meat, with the anchoring keel bones. His spurs would turn on those. But they might punch through the ribs, from above.
He missed when the monster side-slipped, and the blind cockatrice turned and sank its fangs into his wing. Pain, heat and fire, weld-hot needles sunk into his elbow to the bone. He cackled like a machine gun and fell after the monster; wing-fouled, they tumbled to stone.
It lost its grip at the shock of impact, and Matthew screamed fury and pain. The hurt wing trailed, blood splashing, smoke rising from the envenomed wound. He made it beat anyway, dragged himself up, his spurs scraping and sparking on stone. The cockatrice hissed as he rose; his flight was not silent.
They struck hard, breast to breast, grappling legs and slashing spurs. He had his gaffs; the cockatrice had weight and fangs and a coiling tail like a rubber whip. Wings struck, buffeted, thundered. The cockatrice had stopped singing, and Matthew could hear the weeping now. Someone human was crying.
The cockatrice’s talons twined his. Left side, right side. Its wings thumped his head, its beak jabbed. Something tore; blood smeared its beak, his face. He couldn’t see on his right side. He ripped his left leg free of its grip and punched, slashed, hammered. The gaff broke skin with a pop; the cockatrice’s blood soaked him, tepid, no hotter than the air. A rooster’s egg hatched by a serpent.
The cockatrice wailed and thrashed; he ducked its strike at his remaining eye. More blood, pumping, slicking his belly, gumming his feathers to his skin. The blood was venom too. The whole thing was poison; its blood, its breath; its gaze; its song.
The monster fell on top of him. He could turn his head and get his eye out from under it, but when he did, all he saw was Marion, each arm laced under one of Melissa’s armpits, holding the redheaded girl on her knees with a grim restraint while Melissa tried to tear herself free, to run to the poisoned bodies of her friends. The bodies were poison too, corrupted by the cockatrice’s touch. The very stones soaked by its heart’s blood could kill.
It was all venom, all deadly, and there was no way in the world to protect anyone. Not his sacrifice, not the unwitting sacrifice of the black cockerel, made any goddamned difference in the end.
Matthew, wing-broken, one-eyed, his gaff sunk heel-deep in the belly of his enemy, lay on his back under its corpse-weight and sobbed.
The building was emptied, the block closed, the deaths and the evacuations blamed on a chemical spill. Other Prometheans would handle the detox. Matthew, returned to his habitual body, took the shivering black cockerel to a veterinarian with Promethean sympathies, who—at Matthew’s insistence and Jane’s expense—amputated his wing and cleaned and sewed shut his eye. Spared euthanasia, he was sent to a farm upstate to finish his days as a lopsided, piratical greeter of morning. He’d live long, with a little luck, and father many pullets.
Matthew supposed there were worse deaths for a chicken.
Marion did the paperwork. Matthew took her out to dinner. She didn’t make another pass, and they parted good friends. He had a feeling he’d be seeing her again.
There were memorial services for his students, and that was hard. They were freshmen, and he hadn’t known them well; it seemed . . . presumptuous to speak, as if his responsibility for their deaths gave him some claim over their lives. He sat in the back, dressed in his best black suit, and signed the guest book, and didn’t speak.
Katherine Berquist was to be buried in Appleton, Wisconsin; Matthew could not attend. But Regina Gomez was buried in a Catholic cemetery in Flushing, her coffin overwhelmed with white waxy flowers, her family swathed in black crepe and summer-weight worsted, her friends in black cotton or navy. Melissa Martinchek was there in an empire-waisted dress and a little cardigan. She gave Matthew a timid smile across the open grave.
The scent of the lilies was repellent; Matthew vomited twice on the way home.
Melissa came to see him in the morning, outside of his regular office hours, when he was sitting at his desk with his head in his heads. He dragged himself up at the knock, paused, and sat heavily back down.
Thirty seconds later, the locked door clicked open. It swung on the hinges, and Melissa stepped inside, holding up her student ID like a talisman. “The lock slips,” she said. “Gina showed me how. I heard, I heard your chair.”
Gina’s name came out a stammer too.
“Come in,” Matthew said, and gestured her to a dusty orange armchair. She locked the door behind her before she fell into it. “Coffee?”
There was a pot made, but he hadn’t actually gotten up and fetched any. He waved at it vaguely, and Melissa shook her head.
He wanted to shout at her—What were you thinking? What were you doing there?—and made himself look down at his hands instead. He picked up a letter opener and ran his thumb along the dull edge. “I am,” he said, when he had control of his voice again, “so terribly sorry.”
She took two sharp breaths, shallow and he could hear the edge of the giggle under them. Hysteria, not humor. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know what happened.” She held up her hand, and his words died in his open mouth. “I don’t . . . I don’t want to know. But it wasn’t your fault.”
He stood up. He got himself a cup of coffee and poured one for her, added cream and sugar without asking. She needed it. Her eyes were pink-red around the irises, the lower lids swollen until he could see the mucous membrane behind the lashes. She took it, zombie-placid.
“I was safe inside the circle,” he said. “I was supposed to be the bait. Gina and Katie were unlucky. They were close enough to being what it wanted that it took them, instead. As well. Whatever.”
“What did . . . it want?”
“Things feed on death.” He withdrew on the excuse of adding more sugar to his coffee. “Some like a certain flavor. It might even . . . ”
He couldn’t say it. It might even have been trying to lure Matthew out. That would explain why it had left its safe haven at the north end of the island, and gone where Prometheus would notice it. Matthew cringed. If his organization had some wardens in the bad neighborhoods, it might have been taken care of years ago. If Matthew himself had gone into its court unglamoured that first time, it might just have eaten him and left the girls alone.
A long time, staring at the skim of fat on the surface of her coffee. She gulped, then blew through scorched lips, but did not lift her eyes. “Doctor S.—”
“Matthew,” he said. He took a breath, and made the worst professional decision of his life. “Go home, Ms. Martinchek. Concentrate on your other classes; as long as you show up for the mid-term and the final in mine, I will keep your current grade for the semester.”
Cowardice. Unethical. He didn’t want to see her there.
He put his hand on her shoulder. She leaned her cheek against it, and he let her for a moment. Her skin was moist and hot. Her breath was, too.
Before he got away, he felt her whisper, “Why not me?”
“Because you put out,” he said, and then wished he’d just cut his tongue out when she jerked, slopping coffee across her knuckles. He retreated behind the desk and his own cup, and settled his elbows on the blotter. Her survivor guilt was his fault, too. “It only wanted virgins,” he said, more gently. “Send your boyfriend a thank-you card.”
She swallowed, swallowed again. She looked him in the eyes, so she wouldn’t have to look past him, at the memory of her friends. Thank God, she didn’t ask. But she drank the rest of her too-hot coffee, nerved herself, licked her lips, and said, “But Gina—Gina was . . . ”
“People,” he replied, as kindly as he could manage with blood on his hands, “are not always what they want you to think. Or always what you think they ought to be.”
When she th
anked him and left, he retrieved the flask from his coat pocket and dumped half of it into his half-empty coffee mug. Later, a TA told him it was his best lecture ever. He couldn’t refute her; he didn’t remember.
Melissa Martinchek showed up for his next Monday lecture. She sat in the third row, in the middle of two empty desks. No one sat beside her.
Both Matthew and she survived it, somehow.
Elizabeth Bear is the author of over a dozen novels and a hundred short stories; she has been honored for some of them with the John W. Campbell Award, two Hugos, and a Sturgeon Award. Her second collection of short fiction, Shoggoths in Bloom, was published last year. Two novels, Shattered Pillars and One-Eyed Jack, will be published in 2013, as will An Apprentice to Elves, a novel written in collaboration with Sarah Monette. She currently lives in Massachusetts with a giant ridiculous dog.
The Case: Lord Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth I’s favorite since childhood, has been rumored as possible husband for the queen. But he is already married. When his wife is found at the foot of a staircase with her neck broken, Dudley’s hopes for a royal marriage die too. How can a murderer wed a queen? Proof must be found that his wife’s death was by chance or someone’s evil design.
The Investigators: Dr. Erasmus Pilbeam, assistant to magician and alchemist Dr. John Dee, and Pilbeam’s young apprentice Martin Molesworth.
THE NECROMANCER’S APPRENTICE
Lillian Stewart Carl
Robert Dudley, Master of the Queen’s Horses, was a fine figure of a man, as long of limb and imperious of eye as one of his equine charges. And like one of his charges, his wrath was likely to leave an innocent passerby with a shattered skull.
Dudley reached the end of the gallery, turned, and stamped back again, the rich fabrics of his clothing rustling an accompaniment to the thump of his boots. Erasmus Pilbeam shrank into the window recess. But he was no longer an innocent passerby, not now that Lord Robert had summoned him.
“You beetle-headed varlet!” his lordship exclaimed. “What do you mean he cannot be recalled?”
Soft answers turn away wrath, Pilbeam reminded himself. “Dr. Dee is perhaps in Louvain, perhaps in Prague, researching the wisdom of the ancients. The difficulty lies not only in discovering his whereabouts, but also in convincing him to return to England.”
“He is my old tutor. He would return at my request.” Again Lord Robert marched away down the gallery, the floor creaking a protest at each step. “The greatness and suddenness of this misfortune so perplexes me that I shall take no rest until the truth is known.”
“The inquest declared your lady wife’s death an accident, my lord. At the exact hour she was found deceased in Oxfordshire, you were waiting upon the Queen at Windsor. You could have had no hand . . . ”
“Fact has never deterred malicious gossip. Why, I have now been accused of bribing the jurors. God’s teeth! I cannot let this evil slander rest upon my head. The Queen has sent me from the court on the strength of it!” Robert dashed his fist against the padded back of a chair, raising a small cloud of dust, tenuous as a ghost.
A young princess like Elizabeth could not be too careful what familiar demonstrations she made. And yet, this last year and a half, Lord Robert had come so much into her favor it was said that her Majesty visited him in his chamber day and night . . . No, Pilbeam assured himself, that rumor was noised about only by those who were in the employ of Spain. And he did not for one moment believe that the Queen herself had ordered the disposal of Amy Robsart, no matter how many wagging tongues said that she had done so. Still, Lord Robert could hardly be surprised that the malicious world now gossiped about Amy’s death, when he had so neglected her life.
“I must find proof that my wife’s death was either chance or evil design on the part of my enemies. The Queen’s enemies.”
Or, Pilbeam told himself, Amy’s death might have been caused by someone who fancied himself the Queen’s friend.
Lord Robert stalked back up the gallery and scrutinized Pilbeam’s black robes and close-fitting cap. “You have studied with Dr. Dee. You are keeping his books safe whilst he pursues his researches in heretical lands.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“How well have you learned your lessons, I wonder?”
The look in Lord Robert’s eye, compounded of shrewd calculation and ruthless pride, made Pilbeam’s heart sink. “He has taught me how to heal illness. How to read the stars. The rudiments of the alchemical sciences.”
“Did he also teach you how to call and converse with spirits?”
“He—ah—mentioned to me that such conversation is possible.”
“Tell me more.”
“Formerly it was held that apparitions must be spirits from purgatory, but now that we know purgatory to be only papist myth, it must be that apparitions are demonic, angelic, or illusory. The devil may deceive man into thinking he sees ghosts or . . . ” Pilbeam gulped. The bile in his throat tasted of the burning flesh of witches.
“An illusion or deception will not serve me at all. Be she demon or angel, it is Amy herself who is my best witness.”
“My—my—my lord . . . ”
Robert’s voice softened, velvet covering his iron fist. “I shall place my special trust in you, Dr. Pilbeam. You will employ all the devices and means you can possibly use for learning the truth. Do you understand me?”
Only too well. Pilbeam groped for an out. “My lord, whilst the laws regarding the practice of magic are a bit uncertain just now, still Dr. Dee himself, as pious a cleric as he may be, has been suspected of fraternizing with evil spirits . . . my lord Robert, if you intend such a, er, perilous course of action as, well, necromancy . . . ah, may I recommend either Edward Cosyn or John Prestall, who are well known in the city of London.”
“Ill-nurtured cozeners, the both of them! Their loyalty is suspect, their motives impure. No. If I cannot have Dr. Dee I will have his apprentice.”
For a moment Pilbeam considered a sudden change in profession. His beard was still brown, his step firm—he could apprentice himself to a cobbler or a baker and make an honest living without dabbling in the affairs of noblemen, who were more capricious than any spirit. He made one more attempt to save himself. “I am honored, my lord. But I doubt that it is within my powers to raise your . . . er, speak with your wife’s shade.”
“Then consult Dr. Dee’s books, you malmsey-nosed knave, and follow their instructions.”
“But, but . . . there is the possibility, my lord, that her death was neither chance nor villainy but caused by disease . . . ”
“Nonsense. I was her husband. If she had been ill, I’d have known.”
Not when you were not there to be informed, Pilbeam answered silently. Aloud he said, “Perhaps, then, she was ill in her senses, driven to, to . . . ”
“ . . . to self-murder? Think, varlet! A fall down the stairs could no more be relied upon by a suicide than by a murderer. She was found at the foot of the staircase, her neck broken but her headdress still secure upon her head. That is hardly a scene of violence.”
Pilbeam found it furtively comforting that Lord Robert wanted to protect his wife’s reputation from hints of suicide . . . Well, her reputation was his as well. The sacrifice of a humble practitioner of the magical sciences, now—that would matter nothing to him. Pilbeam imagined his lordship’s face amongst those watching the mounting flames, a face contemptuous of his failure.
“Have no fear, Dr. Pilbeam, I shall reward you well for services rendered.” Lord Robert spun about and walked away. “Amy was buried at St. Mary’s, Oxford. Give her my respects.”
Pilbeam opened his mouth, shut it, swallowed, and managed a weak, “Yes, my lord,” which bounced unheeded from Robert’s departing back.
The spire of St. Mary’s, Oxford, rose into the nighttime murk like a admonitory finger pointing to heaven. Pilbeam had no quarrel with that admonition. He hoped its author would find no quarrel with his present endeavor.
He withdrew into the d
ark, fetid alley and willed his stomach to stop grumbling. He’d followed Dr. Dee’s instructions explicitly, preparing himself with abstinence, continence, and prayer made all the more fervid for the peril in which he found himself. And surely the journey on the muddy November roads had sufficiently mortified his flesh. He was ready to summon spirits, be they demons or angels.
The black lump beside him was no demon. Martin Molesworth, his apprentice, held the lantern and the bag of implements. Pilbeam heard no stomach rumblings from the lad, but he could enforce Dr. Dee’s directions only so far as his own admonitory fist could reach. “Come along,” he whispered. “Step lively.”
Man and boy scurried across the street and gained the porch of the church. The door squealed open and thudded shut behind them. “Light,” ordered Pilbeam.
Martin slid aside the shutter concealing the candle and lifted the lantern. Its hot-metal tang dispelled the usual odors of a sanctified site—incense, mildew, and decaying mortality. Pilbeam pushed Martin toward the chancel. Their steps echoed, drawing uneasy shiftings and mutterings from amongst the roof beams. Bats or swallows, Pilbeam hoped.
Amy Robsart had been buried with such pomp, circumstance, and controversy that only a few well-placed questions had established her exact resting place. Now Pilbeam contemplated the flagstones laid close together behind the altar of the church and extended his hand for his bag.
Martin was gazing upward, to where the columns met overhead in a thicket of stone tracery, his mouth hanging open. “You mewling knotty-pated scullion!” Pilbeam hissed, and snatched the bag from his limp hands. “Pay attention!
“Yes, Master.” Martin held the lantern whilst Pilbeam arranged the charms, the herbs, and the candles he dare not light. With a bit of charcoal he drew a circle with four divisions and four crosses. Then, his tongue clamped securely between his teeth, he opened the book he’d dared bring from Dr. Dee’s collection, and began to sketch the incantatory words and signs.
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