What fun that had been. Brimstone stayed for the eviction. He tried to attend all his evictions. He enjoyed the way the tenants begged and pleaded. The widow was no different from the rest, except a bit younger and better-looking, which added to the pleasure. Her husband was just three hours dead. Tripped and fell into a vat of glue, the clumsy cretin. Ruined the whole batch. But then he'd always been a troublemaker – one of those bleeding-hearts who wouldn't boil the necessary kitten. Brimstone hurried round to tell the widow – he loved bringing bad news – then asked her about the rent while she was still in shock and crying. Just as he suspected, she couldn't pay now that her husband was dead. He had the bailiff round in twenty minutes.
It was an exceptionally entertaining eviction. The woman wailed and screamed and fought and howled. At one point she even threw herself at Brimstone's feet, begging and pleading and scrabbling at his trouser-leg. It was as much as he could do to stop himself giggling aloud. But he maintained his dignity, of course. Gave her his more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger lecture about fiscal rectitude and the responsibilities of the tenant. God, how he loved giving that tight little lecture. The bailiff knew the form and didn't drag her off his leg until he'd finished. Marvellous. If it hadn't been for her little dog, it would have been his best eviction ever. Her little dog peed on his shoe.
The bailiff's men brought her possessions round to his office. Not that she had very much, but he liked poking through his tenants' belongings and destroying anything that might have sentimental value. The young widow was much like the others – a few shreds of pitiful clothes, a handful of well-mended pots and pans, one or two cheap ornaments. But there was a wooden chest that looked far better quality than anything else she owned. It was bound with metal bands and padlocked.
'What's this?' Brimstone asked the bailiff's man suspiciously.
'Dunno,' the man said dully. 'She said we shouldn't take it because it wasn't hers. Keeping it for an uncle or some such. But we took it anyway.'
'Quite right,' Brimstone told him. He fingered the padlock with sudden interest.
That padlock gave him a lot of trouble when the bailiff's man left. It was too well-made to pick and the metal binding round the chest wasn't iron as he'd thought at first, but something far stronger. There was even a security charge running through the wood that made it impossible to smash open unless you wanted to risk considerable injury. Brimstone had to drain it off before he tackled the chest seriously. By then, of course, he knew it had to contain something valuable. Nobody took that much trouble just to store their washing.
When the chest resisted all other attempts to open it, he invested in a piece of firestone that turned the lock to molten slag while leaving the remainder of the chest intact. It was nearly half an hour before it had cooled down enough for him to touch and by then his heart was thumping with excitement. What was it the widow had been storing? Gold? Jewels? Family secrets? Artworks? Whatever it was, Brimstone wanted it. But before he threw back the lid, he had no idea how much he wanted it.
As he stared into the chest, he simply could not believe his eyes. The book lay on a bed of straw. It was bound shut with an amber ribbon, but he could still read the faded lettering: The Book of Beleth.
Brimstone's hands shook as he reached inside the chest. He took several calming breaths. It might be a forgery. Heaven knew there were enough of them about – he'd even bought two himself from dealers who turned out to be no better than thieves. But when he slid off the ribbon and opened the boards, he knew at once this was the real thing. The parchment was brown and foxed with age. The hand-drawn lettering was archaic in style, the ink authentic in its fading. But most important of all was the content. Brimstone knew enough about magic to recognise the ritual as genuine. He'd found it at last! He'd found The Book of Beleth!
For three days and three nights, Brimstone studied the book. He refused all food except for a little gruel and declined all strong drink. For once he allowed Chalkhill to run the business affairs without interference. The idiot wasn't likely to lose too much money in so short a time; and even if he did, Brimstone would soon make it up now he had The Book of Beleth. It was the portal to Hell, the key to riches. The man who had The Book of Beleth had all the gold in the world. What a fool that widow was. If she'd only known what was in her safekeeping, she could have paid the rent a thousand times over. She could have owned Chalkhill and Brimstone. She could have overthrown the Purple Emperor himself! But she hadn't known and her stupid dead husband hadn't known and now the book belonged to Silas Brimstone.
In the attic room, he prepared to put it to use.
Brimstone left the book by the window and shuffled over to the cupboard in the west wall. From it he took a bag of coffin nails, a hammer and the dead body of a young goat. It smelled a bit since it was more than four hot days since he'd sacrificed it, but nobody would notice once he started to burn incense. He set a bucket to one side to catch the remains, then drew his dagger and began to skin the goat.
It was sweaty work, but he was good at it. He'd been killing animals all his life and in his younger days he'd skinned most of them. When the pelt was removed, he threw the naked corpse into the bucket, then set about cutting the kidskin into narrow strips. Using the coffin nails, he fastened them to the wooden floor in the form of a circle. The noise of the hammer echoed through the attic room, but he'd given orders he wasn't to be disturbed and the servants knew it was more than their lives were worth to disobey. The circle had to be nine feet in diameter. He banged in the last nail and stepped back to admire his handiwork.
The ring of kidskin had a sinister look. In places it seemed almost as if some rough beast was oozing up out of the floor. Brimstone grinned and cackled. It was perfect. Perfect. Beleth would be pleased.
After he'd rested for a bit, he went back to the bucket where he cut open the stomach of the goat and carefully drew out its intestines. The book hadn't specified what guts he should use, but waste not, want not: it was cheaper than going out and killing something else. He used the last of the coffin nails to tack the intestines in the shape of an equilateral triangle just outside the circle of skin in the south-east corner. It was good. It was very good.
He went back to the cupboard and brought out the energy equipment he'd had made to the specifications in the book. It consisted of three metal lightning globes, each set on top of its own steel tower and linked by cables to a small control box. Everything was ridiculously heavy, but the cables were long so he managed to drag it a piece at a time. He set a tower at each point of the triangle, with the control box between the triangle and the circle. Fabrication of the gear had cost him more than five thousand gold pieces, a hideous expense and a huge nuisance since every penny had to be embezzled from the company and the ledgers cooked so his partner wouldn't find out. But everything would be worth it when he called up Beleth.
Brimstone was getting antsy now, anxious to begin his ritual, but he knew the preparations were important. One wrong step and Beleth might break free. Not good. There was nothing as much trouble as a demon prince on the rampage. They ate children, blighted crops, created hurricanes and droughts. Much more trouble than the skinny little big-eyed demons he was used to. Besides, a freed demon never granted wishes.
Carefully he checked the circle and the triangle. Both were equally important. The triangle was where Beleth would actually appear, but the circle was Brimstone's protection if the demon got out. It was growing dark in the attic – there was a storm brewing outside as often happened with a demon evocation – so he lit a candle to make the examination. There were no breaks in the circle. The intestines outlining the triangle glistened wetly in the candlelight, but there were no breaks there either.