Chapter 72: Five Smooth Stones
In which the Pentagram is drawn
“Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.” Cassandra opened her eyes. She didn't see Devon. Damn. She'd hoped he'd be back by now. Surely he must have taken the spell's anchor stone far enough already. Perhaps he didn't think it was safe to just leave it unguarded someplace.
Well, she had given him a minute; she'd waited long enough. Already the pressure in her head from the insistent spell was building again.
“I'm ready,” she said.
“Are you sure about this?” Mrs. Palmer's brow bore the anguished concern of a professional advice-giver with no idea of what advice to give.
“She's sure,” Grandma. Simms said.
“If I have to cast this incantation,” Cassandra said, “I want to do it on my own terms. I'm doing it now.” She took a deep breath and began.
“TOG-WOG-MAGOG...”
She spoke slowly and deliberately, letting each syllable build upon the last, like a rolling peal of thunder. It was funny. Before, the words kept trying to force their way out of her mouth, but now that she recited the incantation on purpose, the words seemed reluctant to come out. It was as if the spell didn't like her taking control of the casting.
“ASH LOG, ENNOG...”
She felt magic surging through her and out with the words of the incantation, but something else was happening too. It was coming back to her. She was not just a conduit for the magic, she realized. She was the object of it. All at once, the purpose of the spell became clear to her. It was not a spell to break an enchantment, but to create a new one. She was casting the spell on herself. That's what Togwog wanted all along.
She shoved this thought to the back of her mind. She had no more time for second-guessing.
“BOG SLOG CRANNOG...”
It was too late to back out now.
* * * * *
Saima Kamal had been working for the Neetasa-Pynn Cleaning Service for nearly twenty years. For much of it, she had been on the crew assigned to clean the offices of the Redemption Morning Star. She'd started out cleaning the lavs in the loading dock areas and the press room, and worked her way up until she was the lead cleaning woman responsible for the conference rooms and offices of the executive suites on the top floor.
She always approached Mr. Knox's office, the most prestigious and important one on the 12th floor, with a degree of wariness. It wasn't that Mr. Knox was untidy, far from it. Mr. Knox kept his office immaculately clean. The wastebaskets never needed emptying, the furniture never needed dusting, even the toilet paper in the suite's private lav never needed replacing. It made her job easier, certainly, rarely requiring more than a quick once-over with the vacuum cleaner, but it was odd.
Occasionally, Saima would run into Mr. Knox in the hallways, if she happened to be in the building during office hours. He was always polite, in a chummy sort of way that always put her guard up. The people who claimed not to care about class distinctions were usually the ones who reacted worst when someone else transgressed them, so she felt more comfortable maintaining a distance. Also, the friendly questions he would ask regarding her family and such suggested that he knew more about her personal life than she wanted to share with a boss.
Two or three times since she had been promoted to cleaning the 12th floor, she had seen him in his office. Or she thought she had. Each time he had been sitting motionless at his desk staring ahead like a waxwork figure. He would not answer when addressed, but when Shaima turned away she felt as if his eyes were following her. Then, when she'd look again, he'd be gone, as if he had never been there.
The first time this happened, Saima assumed that she had imagined the whole thing. The second time, she resolved to never say anything about the incident. She strongly considered quitting the cleaning service, but the pay was too good and jobs were hard to come by. And, she reminded herself, she didn't really have a real reason to quit.
As she approached Knox's office that evening, she saw a strange light coming from underneath the door. As she drew closer, she saw a sticky note stuck to the door. It read, “DO NOT CLEAN OFFICE TONIGHT. LEAVE IT FOR TOMORROW. KNOX”. Was Mr. Knox working late? That would explain the lights being on, except that the golden glow did not look like the white light of the office LED fixtures.
Shaima gave the door a cautious knock. “Mr. Knox?” she called. Getting no response, she turned the doorknob and opened the door a crack.
The light wasn't coming from the LED light fixtures in the ceiling nor from the desk lamp. Someone had moved Mr. Knox's desk to the center of the room and cleared everything off it except for his shiny gold paperweight, the one he liked to say was made of orichalcium, or sometimes the physical essence of a smokeless flame. It rested on a small stone slab, and it glowed with an intensity that made it really look like a smokeless flame. She saw another sticky note, this one attached to the desktop next to the paperweight. Saima cautiously approached, just close enough to read the note. It said:
Mrs. Kamal –
Curiosity killed the cat.
Satisfaction brought it back.
You may go now.
Knox
Saima backed out of the office as quickly as she could. She didn't want to know anything more about it. She shut the door behind her and bustled her cleaning cart to the next office.
* * * * *
Claude crouched in his chair, his legs drawn up and his arms wrapped around them, with his chin resting on his knees like a medieval gargoyle. Kurayami – the Lady Kurayami, he reminded himself – the Lady Kurayami preferred him to sit up straight when he was working, but she was not at the Club this evening, so he felt free to adopt a posture more ergonomically suited to worry. He had unplugged himself from his computer and swiveled his chair away from his work station so that he could face the glowing red stone on Kurayami's desk.
He did not have an office of his own. The Lady Kurayami placed his work station in a corner of her private office at the Club Cyba-Netsu, discreetly screened by a cubicle partition. This was not a sign of her confidence; she did not regard him as staff, but merely as a piece of office equipment. It sometimes occurred to Claude that he ought to resent this, but pieces of office equipment lacked that luxury.
Lord Melchior had “gifted” him to Lady Kurayami for her to use however she wished, and that was that.
Apart from obeying The Lady Kurayami, Claude had been given three directives. The first was to find out all he could about her organization and pass it along to Melchior. Lord Melchior assumed that Kurayami would be so pleased to have a faerie servitor that she would not consider the possibility that he might be a spy.
This was only partially successful. The Lady Kurayami did take advantage of having a fairy I.T. Guy by permitting him access to her computer system, and this did give Claude a tremendous amount of information about British liquor laws and tax codes, local ordinances on public houses and the practical matters of bribing public officials, but practically nothing about local vampire clans, which of course was what Melchior chiefly wanted. It was quite possible that Lady Kurayami had learned more about Melchior than Melchior had learned from her.
The second directive was more audacious, and the greater failure. Claude had been ordered to entice Kurayami into drinking his blood. “It shouldn't be too difficult,” Lord Melchior had told him. “That's what vampires do, after all.” Faeire blood carries in it an ancient magic, which is inimical to the undead. Melchior believed that if Kurayami were to drink the blood of a fae, she would fall under his power.
Like many clever people,Melchior failed to consider that other people can be clever too, and like many hedonists, it never occurred to him that Kurayami might exercise self-control.
When Claude was first introduced to Lady Kurayami, he had referred to her as a mortal: a terrible faux pas, as he came to realize. From a Faerie point of view, she was a mortal; just a mortal who was already dead. Kurayami had struck his face with the fury of a Bandersnatch and her long lacquered fingernails left a deep scratch on his face. The scar from the scratch was still there. “You shall not use that word in connection with me ever,” she had snarled. Then she ran a finger along the scratch on his cheek to collect a bit of its blood on her fingertip. “You will not forget this,” she said. Claude had expected her to lick the blood off her finger, but instead she held it before his lips, like an obscene sacrament. Claude hesitated, unsure what to do. Then he realized that the decision wasn't his to make. He knew what she wanted. He ran his tongue up her fingertip and closed his lips over it.
Melchior thought that Claude was flirting with her, and smiled in approval. In truth, Claude had fallen under the vampire's power, and by taking blood from her hand, was pledging his allegiance to her.
Claude's third directive was simple, yet more complicated in that it had come neither from Melchior nor Kurayami. Claude could not remember who gave him this command, nor when he had received it. He hadn't known anything about it until that night when the red stone on Lady Kurayami's desk began to glow. Then he just knew. He was to protect the stone and prevent anyone from interfering with it.
So he fetched a teacup, placed it upside-down on the desk, and balanced the glowing, ruby paperweight on top of it. Then he locked the door to the office and retreated to his chair.
“Claude! Open up, ya bloody fae fart! What the hell are you doing in there?”
Leonard, the assistant manager on duty at the Club that evening, had been banging on the door for fifteen minutes now. Claude did not unlock the door. Leonard would probably interfere. Claude wished he knew what he'd be interfering with. He wished he knew what the stone was supposed to do, how long he was supposed to watch it, and what he was going to say to Kurayami when she returned. He wished he knew who had given him these orders. These were more luxuries he lacked.
Life was much less complicated back when he had free will.
* * * * *
The elevator door opened and Byron stepped out into the lobby of the Vanir Technologies executive suite. He hadn't been up here since the night of Melchior's party and that fiasco with the reporter and the VR game. But he was out of the hospital now and it was his first day back at work. The lobby was empty and the lights dim. Was it after hours? How could he be that late? Byron had a vague idea that he had been sent for, but he could not think who might have summoned him.
While he tried to decide whether to sit and wait for someone to show up or go back to the elevator he noticed that the door to Melchior Dusk's private office was slightly ajar and that a dull, orange glow emanated from inside. Something about the eldritch light drew him. It wasn't curiosity; it wasn't even a conscious decision on his part. Byron just found himself approaching the door and nosing his way in.
Inside the office a small group of people stood around the source of the light: a small glowing object about the size of a man's fist, or maybe a bit smaller, resting on Melchior's desk. They gave the impression of a coven of acolytes gathered around an altar, except that no one had brought the prayer-book and everybody was waiting for the priest to show up to lead the psalm.
“Is it supposed to be doing that?” one of them said. Byron couldn't see her face. She sounded like Aurella, the lead character designer on “Featherbunnies and the Magic Spoon,.”
“How should I know?” another replied. That would be Stan, one of the cross-project coordination team. “It's one of Melchior's toys.”
“Inanna would know.” That was Jenkins, Byron's assistant who designed environmental effects on “Virtual Hot Tub.”
Byron realized that all the people gathered around the desk were Melchior's people, the new hires who had been brought into the company when Dusk bought the firm. Why did that not surprise him.
“Inanna's with Lord Melchior at that meeting thing,” Diotima from Human Resources said. “Something to do with mortal politics.”
The others nodded their heads gravely and muttered about the inscrutability of mortal politics. Byron found himself nodding too. “Yeah, politics,” he mumbled.
For the first time, the group seemed to notice Byron's presence. They turned to face him and an unsettling realization came over him. Aurella had feathery antennae adorning her brow and iridescent eyes. And Jenkins had six-fingered hands which looked like beech twigs, and leaves in his hair. And Diotima had a turquoise sheen to her cheeks and glowing lights like miniature stars dancing above her head. How had he never noticed these things? Byron had sometimes wondered if Melchior and his people might be space aliens, but usually dismissed such fantasies. Now he could clearly see that they were not human; yet somehow he also had the deep certainty that they had deeper ties to the earth than he did.
Aurella approached him cautiously, as if he were a butterfly she was afraid of startling. She tilted her head to examine him. “You're Saunders,” she said. “Is Saunders supposed to be here?”
He was certain that he most definitely was not. “I must be dreaming,” he said.
“Ah!” A wave of understanding and relief seemed to sweep over the group.
“Yes,”
“I see.”
“That makes sense.”
“He's dreaming,” they all agreed.
“Nevertheless,” Aurella said, “he still is not supposed to be here.” She extended her hand and lightly placed her fingertips on Byron's forehead. “Wake up!” she said.
And he did.
Byron was lying in his own bed, in his own flat. It was Sunday night, and tomorrow he would be going back to work. He wondered for a moment if the dream was trying to tell him something. Maybe he didn't want to go back to Vanir. Then he shook the cobwebs out of his head. It was just a dream. The big rollout for the new version of “Virtual Hot Tub” for Melchior's VR platform was only a month and a half away and he had over a week's worth of missed work to catch up on. It was probably just stress. Once he got back into the swing of things, he'd be fine.
At least he wasn't dreaming of Nazi orcs anymore.
* * * * *
Lukas Bianka kept his paperweight at home on the desk in his den. A practical man, he used it as a paperweight and had placed it on a few pieces of mail. Since he was at the Council Meeting that evening, no one was present to witness the weight being to glow. The paperweight singed a travel brochure advertising a tour of the Holy Land, an invitation to speak at a conference being held by the Northumberland Knights of Virtue, and a bill from his plumber regarding services to a backed-up drain.
Nothing of terrible significance was incinerated.
* * * * *
Devon, the bearer of the fifth colored paperweight, paused at an indeterminate location between realities and pondered. Strephon sometimes accused Devon of having no interest in deep philosophical matters, but this was untrue. In younger times, he had spent many twilight hours over acorn cups of Midsummer dew arguing Faerie philosophy with his friends.
One of their favorite arguments regarded wishes. How did one best grant a mortal's wish? Many Fae liked to see how far they could twist it while still fulfilling the letter of the request. Devon admitted the comedic value of such a granting, yet felt it immature and unsatisfying. Another possibility was to simply give the mortal what they wanted without playing games with literalism and technicalities, and trust that the mortal's own confused desires would be enough to make the wish backfire. This was more subtle, but only slightly more ethical. The third option was to ignore what the mortal asked for and give them what they needed, but there was hardly any fun in that, and the mortal rarely appreciated it.
Devon's current situation rendered all three options moot. Cassandra had asked him to take the stone as far away as possible, and far enough to disrupt the pentacle of which it was a point. She had worded her request pretty clearly, and its wording, intent and benefit lined up pretty well. Besides, Devon knew that if he did maliciously subvert Cassandra's wish, Strephon would get all cross and tiresome and he'd never hear the end of it.
Nevertheless, Cassandra's commission did offer some interesting room for interpretation. How far was far enough? This was a matter not of adherence to the letter, but of artistry. Moving the stone a mile out of position would probably be plenty; maybe a dozen miles to be safe; but Cassandra had said, “As far as you can go.” Devon could not help but to take that as a challenge.
If he was limiting himself to Earth's terrestrial sphere, “as far as you can go” would mean the antipodes, which would be the middle of the South Pacific southeast of New Zealand. Not difficult, but not terribly poetic either. Devon felt in a mood to do something poetic.
The Far Side of the Moon would be poetic, certainly, but Devon thought he could do better still. Beyond the Farthest Star? But then he'd have to do research to find which star was the farthest and that was more work than he wanted to put into it.
A different plane of existence, though; that had possibilities. Someplace outside the Mortal Realm. That would be far enough to break the pentagram and offer plenty of scope for artistry.
Which is why Devon paused here, just past the bounds of the Mortal Realms: the in-between space on the marches of Reality, and pondered.
He didn't want to bring Cassandra's stone to the Faerie Realm. There was too great a chance of the Togwogmagog spell causing a mess when it misfired, and the Queen's displeasure would be even greater than Strephon's. There were other realms, though, which might serve: the Dreamlands, and the Realm of Shadows; realms with only two dimensions peopled by geometric figures, realms where matter did not exist and the inhabitants had bodies composed of living light, realms where time flowed backwards and realms devoid of magic
Now he had it. The perfect place. He'd send it to The Void.
The Void was not a place exactly, for location suggests that something is there to be located. The Void was more like a state of Emptiness: no light, no heat, no matter. Mortals sometimes thought of Outer Space that way, but Space was constantly bathed in the radiation from stars and echoing with the thoughts of its uncounted inhabitants, Why, one could barely travel a couple paces without tripping across a hydrogen atom or two. Space was positively crowded compared to the Void. Some of Devon's philosophical buddies from his old Midsummer bull sessions speculated that the mortals might have developed their conception of Hell from the Void, but personally Devon thought that was giving Mortals too much credit. Still, according to legend Togwogmagog was supposed to be a demon, and so it gave Devon some amusement to foil Togwog's spell by diverting it through a hellish realm.
The glow of the anchor stone intensified, and it began to thrash in his grip like an irate ferret in a Yorkshireman's trousers. It was clearly trying to reorient itself with the other stones of the pentagram, and it was all Devon could do to keep it from slipping away. Cassandra must have begun the incantation. Devon had to act quickly.
He began to conjure a portal to open into the Void. This was not easy; although his present location did not lie in any particular realm, it was, nevertheless, a part of reality. He had to insinuate his will through several layers of space-time to find a path to nonexistence and to pry it open. He could not make the opening large, little bigger than a good-sized potato, but that was big enough. Devon shoved the anchor stone close to the screaming gap and the ravening emptiness beyond did the rest. The stone disappeared into the hole, and in that brief moment, Devon found himself gazing into something deeper than any abyss; something beyond destruction, beyond obliteration. He looked upon utter and total negation. He had often heard that Nature abhors a vacuum, but for the first time it occurred to Devon that the feeling might be mutual.
Devon shut it closed before the Void took any of his fingers as well. With luck, that would sever the connection between Cassandra's stone and the other anchors of the pentagram, acting as a circuit breaker. At least Devon guessed it would work that way. Fae magic didn't use geometry and Devon had never bothered to study it. He never studied electronics either so he might be wrong about the circuit breaker analogy too.
He might have just routed Togwogmagog's spell through the Void. That would be bad. Cassandra was entangled in that spell and could easily get dragged along with it, effectively sending her to Hell. Just the sort of thing Strephon would find irksome.
Devon had other things to worry about. The fabric of reality where he had created the portal was beginning to undulate and pucker like an inflamed scar, and Devon felt a magical tension wracking his nerves.
The spell was fighting back.
NEXT: Gavotte in Five Dimensions