Black Easter (6 page)

‘Obviously there can’t be a standard supply house for your tools,’ Hess agreed, recovering his composure.

‘No, that’s not even theoretically possible. The operator must make everything himself – not as easy now as it was in the Middle Ages, when most educated men had the requisite skills as a matter of course. Here we go.’

The door swung back as if being opened from the inside, slowly and soundlessly. At first it yawned on a deep scarlet gloom, but Ware touched a switch and, with a brief rushing sound, like water, sunlight flooded the room.

Immediately Hess could see why Ware had rented this particular palazzo and no other. The room was an immense refectory of Sienese design, which in its heyday must often have banquetted as many as thirty nobles; there could not be another one half as big in Positano, though the palazzo as a whole was smaller than some. There were mullioned windows overhead, under the ceiling, running around all four walls, and the sunlight was pouring through two ranks of them. They were flanked by pairs of red-velvet drapes, unpatterned, hung from traverse rods; it had been these that Hess had heard pulling back when Ware had flipped the wall switch.

At the rear of the room was another door, a broad one also covered by hangings, which Hess supposed must lead to a pantry or kitchen. To the left of this was a medium-sized, modern electric furnace, and beside it an anvil bearing a hammer that looked almost too heavy for Ware to lift. On the other side of the furnace from the anvil were several graduated tubs, which obviously served as quenching baths.

To the right of the door was a black-topped chemist’s bench, complete with sinks, running water and the usual nozzles for illuminating gas, vacuum and compressed air; Ware must have had to install his own pumps for all of these. Over the bench on the back wall were shelves of reagents; to the right, on the side wall, ranks of drying pegs, some of which bore contorted pieces of glassware, others, coils of rubber tubing.

Farther along the wall towards the front was a lectern bearing a book as big as an unabridged dictionary, bound in red leather and closed and locked with a strap. There was a circular design chased in gold on the front of the book, but at this distance Hess could not make out what it was. The lectern was flanked by two standing candlesticks with fat candles in them; the candles had been extensively used, although there were shaded electric-light fixtures around the walls, too, and the small writing table next to the lectern bore a Tensor lamp. On the table was another hook, smaller but almost as thick, which Hess recognized at once: the
Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
, forty-seventh edition, as standard a laboratory fixture as a test tube; and a rank of quill pens and inkhorns.

‘Now you can see something of what I meant by requisite skills,’ Ware said. ‘Of course I blow much of my own glassware, but any ordinary chemist does that. But should I need a new sword, for instance’ – he pointed towards the electric furnace – ‘I’d have to forge it myself. I couldn’t just pick one up at a costume shop. I’d have to do a good job of it, too. As a modern writer says somewhere, the only really serviceable symbol for a sharp sword is a
sharp
sword.’

‘Uhm,’ Hess said, continuing to look around. Against the left wall, opposite the lectern, was a long heavy table, bearing a neat ranking of objects ranging in length from six inches to about three feet, all closely wrapped in red silk. The wrappers had writing on them, but again Hess could not decipher it. Beside the table, affixed to the wall, was a flat sword cabinet. A few stools completed the furnishings; evidently Ware seldom worked sitting down. The floor was parquetted, and towards the centre of the room still bore traces of marks in coloured chalks, considerably scuffed, which brought from Ware a grunt of annoyance.

‘The wrapped instruments are all prepared and I’d rather not expose them,’ the magician said, walking towards the sword rack, ‘but of course I keep a set of spares and I can show you those.’

He opened the cabinet door, revealing a set of blades hung in order of size. There were thirteen of them. Some were obviously swords; others looked more like shoemaker’s tools.

‘The order in which you make these is important, too,’ Ware said, ‘because, as you can see, most of them have writing on them, and it makes a difference what instrument does the writing. Hence I began with the uninscribed instrument, this one, the bolline or sickle, which is also one of the most often used. Rituals differ, but the one I use requires starting with a piece of unused steel. It’s fired three times, and then quenched in a mixture of magpie’s blood and the juice of a herb called foirole.’

‘The
Grimorium Verum
says mole’s blood and pimpernel juice,’ Hess observed.

‘Ah, good, you’ve been doing some reading. I’ve tried that, and it just doesn’t seem to give quite as good an edge.’

‘I should think you could get a still better edge by finding out what specific compounds were essential and using those,’ Hess said. ‘You’ll remember that Damascus steel used to be tempered by plunging the sword into the body of a slave. It worked, but modern quenching baths are a lot better – and in your case you wouldn’t have to be constantly having to trap elusive animals in large numbers.’

‘The analogy is incomplete,’ Ware said. ‘It would hold if tempering were the only end in view, or if the operation were only another observance of Paracelsus’ rule,
Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest
– doing for yourself what you can’t trust others to do. Both are practical ends that I might satisfy in some quite different way. But in magic the blood sacrifice has an additional function – what we might call the tempering of, not just the steel, but also the operator.’

‘I see. And I suppose it has some symbolic functions, too.’

‘In goëtic art, everything does. In the same way, as you probably also know from your reading, the forging and quenching is to be done on a Wednesday in either the first or the eighth of the day hours, or the third or the tenth of the night
hours, under a full Moon. There is again an immediate practical interest being served here – for I assure you that the planetary hours do indeed affect affairs on Earth – but also a psychological one, the obedience of the operator in every step. The grimoires and other handbooks are at best so confused and contradictory that it’s never possible to know completely what steps are essential and what aren’t, and research into the subject seldom makes for a long life.’

‘All right,’ Hess said. ‘Go on.’

‘Well, the horn handle has next to be shaped and fitted, again in a particular way at a particular hour, and then perfected at still another day and hour. By the way, you mentioned a different steeping bath. If you use that ritual, the days and the hours are also different, and again the question is, what’s essential and what isn’t? Thereafter, there’s a conjuration to be recited, plus three salutations and a warding spell. Then the instrument is sprinkled, wrapped and fumigated – not in the modern sense, I mean it’s perfumed – and is ready to use. After it’s used, it has to be exorcised and rededicated, and that’s the difference between the wrapped tools on the table and those hanging here in the rack.

‘I won’t go into detail about the preparation of the other instruments. The next one I make is the pen of the Art, followed by the inkpots and the inks, for obvious reasons – and, for the same reasons, the burin or graver. The pens are on my desk. This fitted needle here is the burin. The rest, going down the line as they hang here rather than in order of manufacture, are the white-handled knife, which like the bolline is nearly an all-purpose tool … the black-handled knife, used almost solely for inscribing the circle … the stylet, chiefly for preparing the wooden knives used in tanning … the wand or blasting rod, which describes itself … the lancet, again self-descriptive … the staff, a restraining instrument analogous to a shepherd’s … and lastly the four swords, one for the master, the other three for his assistants, if any.’

With a side-glance at Ware for permission, Hess leaned forward to inspect the writings on the graven instruments. Some of them were easy enough to make out: on the sword of the master, for instance, the word M
ICHAEL
appeared on the
pommel, and on the blade, running from point to hilt, E
LOHIM
G
IBOR
. On the other hand, on the handle of the white-handled knife was engraved the following:

Hess pointed to this, and to a different but equally baffling inscription that was duplicated on the handles of the stylet and the lancet. ‘What do those mean?’

‘Mean? They can hardly be said to mean anything any more. They’re greatly degenerate Hebrew characters, orignally comprising various Divine Names. I could tell you what the Names were once, but the characters have no content any more – they just have to be there,’

‘Superstition,’ Hess said, recalling his earlier conversation with Baines, interpreting Ware’s remark about Christmas.

‘Precisely, in the pure sense. The process is as fundamental to the Art as evolution is to biology. Now if you’ll step this way, I’ll show you some other aspects that may interest you.’

He led the way diagonally across the room to the chemist’s bench, pausing to rub irritatedly at the chalk marks with the sole of his slipper. ‘I suppose a modern translation of that aphorism of Paracelsus,’ he said, ‘would be “You just can’t get good servants any more.” Not to ply mops, anyhow. … Now, most of these reagents will be familiar to you, but some of them are special to the Art. This, for instance, is exorcised water, which as you see I need in great quantities. It has to be river water to start with. The quicklime is for tanning. Some laymen, de Camp for instance, will tell you that “virgin parchment” simply means parchment that’s never been written on before, but that’s not so – all the grimoires insist that it must be the skin of a male animal that has never engendered, and the
Clavicula Salomonis
sometimes insists upon unborn parchment, or the caul of a newborn child. For tanning I also have to grind my own salt, after the usual rites are said over it. The candles I use have to be made of the first wax taken from a new hive, and so do my almadels. If I need images, I have to make them of earth dug up with my bare hands and reduced to a
paste without any tool. And so on.

‘I’ve mentioned aspersion and fumigation, in other words sprinkling and perfuming. Sprinkling has to be done with an aspergillum, a bundle of herbs like a fagot or
bouquet garni
. The herbs differ from rite to rite and you can see I’ve got a fair selection here – mint, marjoram, rosemary, vervain, periwinkle, sage, valerian, ash, basil, hyssop. In fumigation the most commonly used scents are aloes, incense, mace, benzoin, storax. Also, it’s sometimes necessary to make a stench – for instance in the fumigation of a caul – and I’ve got quite a repertoire of those.’

Ware turned away abruptly, nearly treading on Hess’s toes, and strode towards the exit. Hess had no choice but to follow him.

‘Everything involves special preparation,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘even including the firewood if I want to make ink for pacts. But there’s no point in my cataloguing things further, since I’m sure you thoroughly understand the principles.’

Hess scurried after, but he was still several paces behind the magician when the window drapes swished closed and the red gloom was reinstated. Ware stopped and waited for him, and the moment he was through the door, closed it and went back to his seat behind the big desk. Hess, puzzled, walked around the desk and took one of the Florentine chairs reserved for guests or clients.

‘Most illuminating,’ he said politely. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Ware rested his elbows on the desk and put his fingertips over his mouth, looking down thoughtfully. There was a sprinkle of perspiration over his brow and shaven head, and he seemed more than usually pale; also, Hess noticed after a moment, he seemed to be trying without major effort, to control his breathing. Hess watched curiously, wondering what could have upset him. After only a moment, however, Ware looked up at him and volunteered the explanation, with an easy half smile.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘From apprenticeship on, we’re trained to secrecy. I’m perfectly convinced that it’s unnecessary these days, and has been since the Inquisition died, but old oaths are the hardest to reason away. No discourtesy intended.’

‘No offence taken,’ Hess assured him. ‘However, if you’d rather rest …’

‘No, I’ll have ample rest in the next three days, and be incommunicado, too, preparing for Dr Baines’s commission. So if you’ve further questions, now’s the time for them.’

‘Well … I have no further technical questions, for the moment. But I am curious about a question Baines asked you during your first meeting – I needn’t pretend, I’m sure, that I haven’t heard the tape. I wonder, just as he did, what your motivation is. I can see from what you’ve shown me, and from everything you’ve said, that you’ve taken colossal amounts of trouble to perfect yourself in your Art, and that you believe in it. So it doesn’t matter for the present whether or not
I
believe in it, only whether or not I believe in you. And your laboratory isn’t a sham, it isn’t there solely for extortion’s sake, it’s a place where a dedicated man works at something he thinks important. I confess I came to scoff – and to expose you, if I could – and I still can’t credit that any of what you do works, or ever did work. But I accept that you so believe.’