Tarrant made a sour face. “I have to admit that a demon, a Mephistopheles to Arachne’s Faustus, is the most logical answer. I don’t like it. I might as well believe in vampires, next—”
“Or brownies?” Elizabeth said suggestively, and Sebastian flushed. “I agree with you, Doctor. And that is yet another good reason for us to do as little as possible magically, and make most of that passive. I had a feeling I ought to use the telegraph rather than occult means of calling the other Masters, and now I’m glad I did. I wish I knew if holy symbols really worked against demons, though.” She bit her lip. “The wearing of my grandmother’s crucifix is very, very tempting right now.”
“I suspect that depends entirely on the depth of belief of the one using them,” Tarrant replied, regaining his equilibrium. “And I will make no judgment on the state of your belief, Elizabeth. As for myself—” he hesitated. “I suspect for me, that any holy symbol would be as efficacious, or not, as any other. Doctor, if you are ready, so are we.”
With the room already shielded, all he needed to do, really, was to set up the other object he had brought with him besides the book. This was an amber sphere about the size of a goose egg with no inclusions, amber being about the only material suitable for an Earth Master to use for scrying. Then he placed the book in front of it, and sat facing the sphere at the tiny table below the window, both hands atop the book, which was open to the relevant passage.
Then, after invoking his own personal shields, he “touched” the book with a delicate finger of power.
Show me—he whispered to it. Show me your author, and what was happening when he wrote these words.
He was hoping for a scene in the sphere, or at least a few suggestive hints that he could concentrate on to bring things further into focus. At best, he hoped for a clear image of the old Master in the midst of his single combat with the Satanic magician he had tersely described in his entry.
He did not expect what he got.
He was jolted—exactly like being struck by lightning—as power slammed into him from the pages of the book themselves, knocking him back in his chair, and breaking his contact with the volume.
“Bloody hell!” he yelped, shocked beyond measure. But before he—or either of the other two—could react, a column of light flung itself upwards from the open book, reaching floor—to—ceiling—a golden-yellow light, like sun on ripening corn.
“Bloody hell!” Sebastian echoed, as Lady Elizabeth yelped.
And in the very next moment, he found himself looking up into the eyes of a vigorous man of perhaps late middle-years, bearded, moustached, crowned with a flat cap and attired in a laced and slashed doublet, small starched ruff, sleeved gown identical to an academic gown, hose and those ridiculous balloonlike breeches that the Tudors wore. The fact that the fellow was entirely colorless and transparent had no bearing whatsoever on the sensation of force he radiated.
The light radiated from him, and it was as utterly unlike the black-green poison of the curse holding Marina as it was possible to be. Andrew wanted to drink in that light, eat it, pull it in through every pore. And as for that power, that force—
The man also radiated the palpable force of an Earth Master as far above Andrew in power as Andrew was above Thomas Buford. And more.
Details of the man’s appearance branded themselves on his brain. The square jaw underneath a beard neatly trimmed, but with one untidy swirl, as if there was a scar under the hair. The bushy eyebrows that overhung a pair of keen eyes that might have been blue. The doublet, dark and sober, contrasting wildly with the striped satin of the puffy breeches and an entirely immodest codpiece ornamented in sequins and bullion. The equally sober robe he wore over both—a robe of velvet that had been badly rubbed in places, as if it was an old and favored garment that the man could not bear to part with, despite it being a bit shabby.
“God’s Blood!” the man barked—audibly. And with a decided Scots brogue to his words.
Andrew started again; he hadn’t expected the apparition to speak!
The spirit stamped his foot—no sound. “Devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon! Where gottest thou that goose-look? It’s half mad I’ve been, wondering if thee’d the wit to use the book! Damme, man, thee took thy leisure, deciding the menace here!”
A quick glance at Elizabeth showed she was fascinated, staring at what could only be a spirit, as if she could hardly restrain herself from leaping up to touch it. Sebastian Tarrant, however, was as white as a sheet. But it was Tarrant who spoke.
“You—you’re a ghost!” he bleated. There was no other word for the absurd sound that came out of his mouth. Formidable Fire Master Sebastian Tarrant sounded just like a frightened sheep.
The spirit favored him with a jaundiced eye. “That, and ha’pence will buy thee a wheaten loaf,” he said dismissively. He stepped down off the table, which at least put him at eye level with all of them. He was—rather short. But no one would ever dismiss him as insignificant. “Aye, I linked myself, dying, to yon book, in case one day there was need and no one to teach.”
“Teach about the—” he began, and the spirit made a hushing motion.
“Best not to talk about them,” he cautioned. “Not aloud. And my time is short—so I’ll be brief. Thee has caught it, laddie—’tis the selfsame enemy, mine and thine, If thee live through this, thee will have to reck out how they done this. If; that be for later. And the on’y way thee will beat them now is to divide them. Thou—” he pointed at Andrew “—thou’lt confront the man. But she—” he pointed at Marina “—the on’y way she’ll be free is to fight the mother, herself.”
“But—” Andrew began.
“But me no buts!” the spirit interrupted, scowling. “There be twa things thee’ll need to do, an’ I dinna get much time to explain them, so listen proper the first time.”
Sebastian had recovered, and nodded, moving closer, as did Elizabeth. Andrew noticed then that the light surrounding the spirit was dimmer than it had been. Perhaps the power stored in the book was all that held the spirit here. If that was the case—
Later, later. Live through this, first.
The spirit continued, resting his left hand on his book. “The first thing is for all of ye—all five—t’ takit hold of that cursed magic she’s put on the girl an’ give it a good hard pull. Ye shan’t hurt her, but ye’ll get the mother’s attention. Then…”
Holding their breaths lest they miss a word, the three of them leaned forward to take it all in.
Marina was in a garden. A very, very small garden. Not a paradise by any means; this was a tiny pocket of dead and dying growth, struggling to survive in dim and fitful light, and failing, but failing with agonizing slowness. It was walled twice, first in curving walls of brambles with thorns as long as her hand, and beyond them, a wall like a sphere or a bubble, curving gray surfaces, opaque and impermeable—but which flickered with that black-green energy that had engulfed her before she had blacked out. She was disinclined to touch either the walls of thorn or the walls of energy—assuming she could even reach the latter. She mistrusted the look of the thorns—she suspected that they might actually move to hurt her if she approached them. And she’d already had too much close acquaintance with that peculiar magical energy.