Dark Arts (18 page)

“I remember it’s yellow and filling,”
Maxwell said. “Don’ think I’ve had any in a couple years. Need my
coffee though, be right back.” He stood and fetched himself a cup
of coffee from one of the side tables and was reminded of the
previous night’s events as he dumped two creamers and a couple
sugar into the steaming hot black. By the time he returned to
Samuel, Allen was joining him, trying to keep his smile small so he
didn’t aggravate his stitched lip. “They kicked me out of the
kitchen,” he said.

“Ever since I was a lad, I’ve offered to
help the ladies in the kitchen, and I have been shooed out almost
every time. At my age, with my lungs, I’ve given up, they seem
happy telling me what to eat and feeding me too much of it.”

“Maybe I should stop offering too,” Allen
said.

Samuel’s fork stopped half way to his mouth.
“Oh no, not until you’re wobbly kneed and wheezy like me. The offer
is worth four times the favor.” He shoved the forkful of egg
casserole into his mouth and looked as though he’d eaten
ambrosia.

“How are you this morning, old man?” Allen
asked.

“Better than you,” he said after finishing
his mouth full. “Nice clear weather, it’s not the heat that gets
me, it’s the humidity, none of that nonsense today. How are you?
That looks painful from here,” he said, gesturing towards Allen’s
face with his empty fork.

“Lip bothers me more than anything,” Allen
said. “Pretty good otherwise.”

“I’m sorry about all that,” Maxwell said. “I
brought that on, should have been better prepared, handled it
myself.”

“You needed to cast a circle before what you
tried last night,” Allen said, trying not to move his lip too much.
“Just don’t work alone when you don’t have to, and with everyone
here, you don’t have to. There’re more folks around here willing to
do something foolish than you’d guess. All’s forgiven, boy. Just
hold off on anything else until initiation.”

“My last one, you’re lucky,” Samuel said.
“You’ll have this one leading it next year, or maybe we’ll break
tradition and finally have a Priestess running things?”

“That’s more likely than me taking over.
Susanne is our best weaver, and she’s staying in Canada, so you’ll
see it happen,” Allen said.

“Oh? That’s going to be good.”

Maxwell couldn’t hold his questions any
longer. “I sealed the Dawn Shard in the ground last night,” he said
quietly.

Samuel picked his watch out of his pocket,
opened it, nodded, then snapped it shut. “I know,” he replied.
“We’ll see where that leads, I’ll say it’s worth trying once.”

“All right,” Maxwell said, a little
surprised that he wasn’t subject to an epic lecture. “So why does
it seem like that’s the thing to watch out for, and the book is
about as scary as harsh language.”

“The shard is a heavy burden, as far as we
can tell, that’s true,” Allen was interrupted as Gladys dropped a
plate with casserole, bacon and hash browns onto the table in front
of him.

“Stop talking when you don’t have to,” she
told him, pinching a tuft of his short blonde hair and tugging it
as she walked away.

“I’ll talk for you,” Samuel said. “Some pair
we make, one with lips that have to stay still, the other who can’t
catch his breath in humid weather. Max, you know more about that
book than anyone here, your father wrote three volumes on it.”

“That’s mostly the history, where it’s been,
who had it when, and what the legends say it was used for,” Maxwell
said. “I didn’t even believe most of what he wrote on how these
rites work. It’s locked up in my room, by the way.” He
whispered.

“Good, may want to keep it on you though,
it’s made of rugged stuff, it’ll stay together, but that’ll do for
now. Maxwell, the covenant is a touchy topic here because there are
people well practiced enough to break it, powerful enough to make
that work for them,” Samuel said. “You break the covenant, and you
take the balance of reality out of the divine’s hands. We bend the
rules as much as a mortal can as it is, but if you use the keys in
that book to take divine power out of the situation, you can throw
the rules away. Knowledge truly is power, and as my fifth wife can
attest, strange things happen when a High Weaver talks in his
sleep. I summoned her Uncle Zini one night, and we were in separate
beds for the rest of our marriage.”

“So the shard is like raw power with endless
consequences, and the book is temptation and power,” Maxwell said.
He watched Allen carefully eat egg casserole and felt deep pangs of
guilt. Eating was not pleasant for him judging from the sweat on
his forehead, redness on his face and how slowly he chewed. The
scratches on the inside of his mouth must have made it a
misery.

“Endless consequences,” Samuel said,
nodding. “I like that. You must understand, the shard and the book
were found together for a reason. Panos may have broken from the
Purifiers if he had them. He must have had plans the two pieces are
awful in concert. A thing that draws a powerful demon in it’s wake
and attracts spirits combined with a book containing the definitive
text on breaking or restoring the cycle of life and death in many
different ways? You are trained well enough to know how dangerous
that is, how tempting that is. Even I know I could be born again
through such magic, and it would break the covenant utterly.”

“Fear,” Allen said. “That’s what drives
people to the book.”

“Good point,” Samuel said. “I accept that
I’ll be moving on soon, there are a lot of people I’ll see once I
cross over, and I’ll be able to send a few messages back.” He
checked his watch again, nodded, then snapped it shut. “There are
plenty of people who not only fear death, but believe that there is
a debt to be paid when they reach the other side. People who pray
to Gods who yield obvious results are the worst of them. They’ll do
anything to stay in this existence, away from whatever cost they’ve
incurred. No one at this table has anything to fear. I’m glad you
turned the Gentleman down.”

“How would you know that?” Maxwell
asked.

“I can tell the time, boy,” Samuel said with
a wry grin. “And you wouldn’t believe what the time tells me.”
Maxwell could hear the gears inside Samuel’s pocket watch spinning,
and the old man took it off the table then slipped it into his
pocket. “Now there’s something about you and Miranda being
separated,” Samuel said, looking up to the stairs where Miranda was
coming down in blue jeans and blouse that laced up the front, its
long sleeves were cut on a slant, so it was short above her thumb
on one side, but drooped down past her fingertips on the other. Her
hair was still wet from what Maxwell assumed must have been a cold
shower. “Allen was actually there, but I know the why’s and the
who’s, so I’ll fill you in.”

Miranda crossed the floor and kissed Maxwell
briefly. “Good morning,” she said before moving on, kissing Allen
and Samuel on the cheek before sitting down.

Her aunt Susanne was out of the kitchen with
a plate with an egg, two pieces of toast and two pieces of bacon on
it, in one hand and a cup of black coffee in the other. She put it
down in front of her, kissed the top of her head then whispered
something in Italian.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Miranda said sourly.
“And good morning to you too.”

“What was that about?” Samuel asked once
Susanne was back in the kitchen.

“Telling me I’m watching my figure,” Miranda
said, stealing a waffle from Maxwell’s plate, taking a bite and
waving it at the kitchen.

“No complaints,” Maxwell said. “Samuel was
about to tell us why you were whisked across the world when we were
young,” he pressed in an attempt to change the topic.

“Oh?” Miranda said. “I always thought there
was something more to it.”

“There was,” Allen said.

“I’ll explain, keep that face of yours
still, or you’ll never be as handsome as me when you’re my age,”
Samuel told him.

Maxwell took the opportunity to begin
scarfing the contents of his plate down. There was so much talking
during the breakfast so far, he’d spent more time staring at his
food than eating it. The egg casserole was the best thing on the
plate, firm and cheesy on the bottom, creamy and tart in the
middle, with crunchy cheesy on top.

“When you were just becoming teens, you were
already very close,” Samuel explained. “We could see it in how you
played music together, we caught Miranda often reaching out to hold
hands with you, and while Bernie and Scott were welcome to tag
along, you two were really each other’s world by the end. It came
to the point where we had to make sure your family trees didn’t
cross sometime in the past, and we were pretty relieved to find out
that they didn’t. There was an engagement three generations back,
but it was short lived, and it produced no children.”

Allen rolled his fork in the air, looking at
Samuel.

“Right, getting on with it,” Samuel said.
“Your mother was already planning to take a few years in Italy and
Spain with her sisters, so you could know your people on the other
side of the world. She also wanted to get you two away from each
other so you could find your own way into adulthood, into a life of
practicing magic. Even more importantly, she didn’t want Max’s
refusal to believe in any of it to rub off on you, and even I could
see it already was. Max’s refusal to believe, to live a simpler
life was a strong notion, even Bernie and Scott were influenced for
it for a while, but their parents forced them into initiation, so
that put a stop to it.” Samuel took his last bite of egg casserole
as he spotted Gladys coming towards their table.

“More, then?” she asked.

“I wish I could, but thirds is my limit I’m
afraid,” Samuel said.

“There’ll be more tomorrow,” Gladys said,
shaking her head as she walked away with his fork and plate.

Samuel looked at Miranda and smiled a
little. “The day you arrived in Spain, after you had spent time
learning and living in Italy, you found your way through the craft
to Summoning. Yesterday, from what I hear, Maxwell took to Weaving
like he was born to it, so that part of things worked. Your
affinities showed through any distractions because they were
removed from you as much as anyone could without making the two of
you terribly miserable.”

“There was more,” Allen said.

“Right, your memories,” Samuel said. “I’m
sorry, Max, but this is the bit I don’t agree on with your father,
I mean, didn’t agree with. He cast a spell on you specifically so
you’d forget how much you cared about Miranda shortly after she
left. I bet you don’t remember your first kiss, either. It was with
each other, and you were caught too, or at least your father was
pretty sure that was your first kiss.”

“I remember,” Miranda said. “We were caught
snogging in the first barn stall. That was the first time I heard
that word, snogging.”

“Well, I have no memory of it,” Maxwell
said.

“You never forget feelings entirely,” Samuel
said, smiling a little. “I knew that when you saw Miranda, you’d
get them back. What would happen from there, well, that’s for you
two to control. Your Aunt Gladys there believes that you’re
destined to be together, but I can tell you that there are few
destinies you can’t change, either by sheer force of will, or by
believing that you don’t have to work for it to come true. You two
ignore the destiny mumbo jumbo, and do what you want. You’re young,
but you’re grown, so it’s up to you.”

“Six marriages,” Allen said, shaking his
fork at Samuel.

“Maybe he’s right, I might not be the right
one to give advice,” Samuel said with a chuckle. “But I’ll tell you
something not many people can say for sure. Every time I got
married there were good times, and I’m still hoping for just one
more. Those good times are so precious.”

Allen shook his head and laughed softly.

“But you first, mister widower,” Samuel
said.

Maxwell had almost finished everything on
his plate, leaving the other waffle uneaten. Miranda only had to
point at it to get his nod to go ahead. Her plate was empty, and
the waffle seemed to fill in the last of the gaps. “That explains a
lot,” he told Samuel. “Too bad my father’s not around so I could
thank him or give him hell, not sure which.”

“You’re sure,” Allen said.

“You’re right,” Maxwell said. “It would be a
shouting match for the ages.”

The sounds of drums echoed across the field,
the sound of Scott finishing with the setup of his drum kit. “I
hear the drums calling you,” Samuel said.

“Right, glad I didn’t eat those waffles, I’d
be too full to sing,” Maxwell said, He finished his coffee and
stood with Miranda.

“Thank you, guys,” Miranda said. “My aunts
won’t talk about taking me to Italy, or anything before. That is,
unless it’s about meeting Max again.”

“I think your aunt Gladys lives through you
a little, but let’s not share that insight,” Samuel said.

Allen nodded his agreement emphatically.

“Thank you again,” Max said, putting his
hand on Allen’s shoulder. “I should be the one all scratched up
this morning.”

Allen waved it off, and when Maxwell didn’t
leave he nodded. “It happened, and I would do it again.”

The barn was all set up with all of Road
Craft’s equipment, even the spare amplifier they kept in hand in
case of break downs was on stage, along with all four of their
microphones on stands. “You gonna sing for us, Miranda?” Scott
asked with a big grin from behind the drums.

“I’ll watch first,” she said. “I’ve been
looking forward to seeing Road Craft live since your record came
out,” she said, grinning back at him.

“Thanks for setting up, guys,” Maxwell said.
“Should have left something for me to do.”

Bernie looked at Scott and a more somber
mood descended on the pair. Scott came out from behind his drums
and sat down on the edge of the stage beside Bernie, who was
examining their longest microphone cable by pulling it through one
hand foot by foot. “Listen, Max, we know how much you’ve sacrificed
for this band, and Samuel had a talk with us this morning,” Bernie
said.