“So you come to me,” Hessler said, and waited. “Yes,” Serrin said simply and, in return, waited. “Well, then, I can tell you that the Priory wouldn’t care a damn if every computer system in the world disappeared into thin air overnight,” Hessler told him. “Completely irrelevant to them.”
“Then it’s the decker,” Serrin said at once. “They know…” He stopped. “What do they know? Do they want him? Are they afraid of him? They must know who he is.”
“Logical,” Hess!er said with the hint of a smile.
“Then why are they afraid that we might find him? They must be, surely, to have warned us off.”
“Perhaps,” Hessler said, “they want to find him themselves, and they don’t want anyone else to do so first.”
“And the Jesuits?”
Hessler’s eyes hardened. “That might apply to them also.”
“An awful lot of people seem to want to find our decker.”
Hessler laughed, a soft, musical peal of sound. “Including a lot of very wealthy corporations, by your account.”
“He must be one hell of a guy,” Serrin said, the older elf’s laughter becoming infectious.
“Makes one wonder how he hasn’t been found, doesn’t it?” Hessler said it almost as if the statement were no more than a throwaway observation. Serrin looked up at him and his mind was suddenly completely concentrated. It was as if he were suddenly sober after an evening of intoxication.
“You know who he is,” he said, just managing to keep it from sounding like an accusation.
“I might,” Hessler said evenly. “That is, I might have my suspicions.”
So how does this mage know who an exceptional decker is? It cant be because he’s a decker, he must be more… Serrin’s mind was racing.
“Michael’s employers would pay a fortune to know,” Serrin said.
“Come now,” Hessler said in a gently reproaching voice, “You must know that money isn’t the kind of thing that matters to me.”
“And you won’t tell me,” Serrin said miserably.
“It’s not as simple as that,” Hessler said. “If my suspicions are right, then I want to know why he’s doing this. It’s not really like him.”
“So its a him” Serrin said. “Well, that eliminates half of the population at least.”
Hessler laughed again.
“Why won’t you tell me?” Serrin’s voice was urgent now.
Hessler looked gravely back at him. “Serrin, it really isn’t as simple as all that. I’m not the only one who’ll be interested in why he’s doing this. There are certain… certain rumors I have heard, that others of us have heard, which might explain it. I need to know for myself about those things. The matter of the Matrix is unimportant to us.
“Unimportant?” Serrin was incredulous. “Every business system on the planet might crash overnight. The consequences are unimaginable. The Great Crash of ‘Twenty-nine all over again but magnified a hundredfold. Thousands bankrupted, millions thrown out of work-unimportant?”
“Relatively, yes,” Hessler said quite firmly.
“Relative to what?”
“I don’t think I can really discuss that,” Hessler continued. “The decision is not mine to make.”
“Thanks so very much,” Serrin shot back. “My friends and I are getting attacked by spirits, traced and tracked, drugged and dumped in crates, and our associates killed because we’re stumbling around in something, and it would really be good to have some idea of what that might be, you know.”
“You have enough leads to follow,” Hessler said. “Judging by what you’ve told me.”
“You can give me something, surely,” the younger elf said plaintively. He was almost begging.
“Then keep away from the NOJ,” Messier said sharply. “They, too, have an interest, which is obvious. But they’re killers pure and simple, as they have always been in their various guises over the centuries. Avoid them. Consider some form of understanding with others. That will suffice.
“Now there is another matter. There will be ritual magic needed. I must send a spirit to destroy the tokens taken from your friends. It will have to be strong to breach the defenses of the enemy, and must not be traced. This will not be easy.”
“Don’t I know it,” Serrin said uneasily. He’d never been much at practicing ritual magic, but the scale of the enterprise was clear enough to him.
“I can do it for you,” Hessler said, “but there will be a price”
Serrin nodded. “Of course.”
“It’s not for me, you understand, but for Merlin,” Hessler said.
“Merlin is… an ally?”
Hessler sat back in his chair and laughed loud and long. When he was done, he wiped at an eye with his right hand, and smiled almost forlornly.
“Ach, dear me, no. It would amuse him to hear you call him that. Merlin is a free spirit. He has simply chosen to be my companion. He is curious and loves this world and the people in it. That is why he will help you too. The reward should be his.”
Hessler paused and gave Serrin a long look before speaking. “I want karma from you, for him.”
Serrin had half-expected it. It would drain him, for weeks even into months. Some of his own spiritual strength and power would be gifted to the free spirit, who would use it to develop its own powers and talents. It was the price free spirits always required for their services. And while mundanes could yield a little for such assistance, a magician was always the most effective donor of such energies and power.
“Whatever it takes,” Serrin agreed. It was for Kristen, after all. After a winter of cold, snowbound Scottish nights spent around warm log fires with her, walks into a gray, almost Arctic horizon, after uncounted thousands of words shared and spoken or not required to be, he would have given up anything that was demanded of him. And he trusted the older elf.
“It should be soon,” Hessler suggested.
“Soon as possible,” Serrin said fervently. “We’ve got less than a week.”
A black cat strolled into the mom, tail raised to the heavens, and leapt into Hessler’s lap. Absentmindedly, he stroked under the cat’s chin, where felines have oil-secreting glands and love to be cosseted. The cat purred and closed her eyes.
“I believe you’ve already met Hathor,” Messier said.
Serrin grinned. “I’m on very good terms with her father.” He genuinely liked cats and they took to him readily. He also knew another ailurophile when he saw one, and the older elf’s way of pleasing the cat was clearly born of experience. The first knuckle of his index finger knew exactly the right spot to rub under the cat’s chin, and she was already threatening to roll over to have her belly rubbed.
“Better ask Merlin to come up,” Hessler said thoughtfully. Serrin took the cue and left the elf to his thoughts.
To his surprise, Kristen was bright-eyed and enthusiastically even volubly, talking to a young man clearly hanging on her every word. Serrin paused at the foot of the stairs, surprised and even relieved to hear her so animated. The Sound of a chair scraped along stone punctuated the monologue.
“Then they move like this, you see.” Serrin could suppress his interest no longer and walked into the kitchen, to find her in a swaying dance before the enraptured spirit-man.
His smile was broad, but she stopped and looked a little bashful.
“I didn’t mean to-“ he began.
“My master wants me?” Merlin said at once. “Well, please excuse me, young lady. This has been wonderful! I have learned so much.”
He got up and nodded his head a little to her, an almost subliminal gesture, and smiled at Serrin as he walked past him and up the stairs outside.
“And you were apprehensive about him” Serrin said gently, trying to avoid the impression that he’d broken in on something pleasurable for her.
“Well, I didn’t know what a spirit was like, I mean, not like him,” she said a little defensively, and sat down in her chair again.