Fathomless (10 page)

“Sean?”

“You think so, too, Mr. Geldman. They don't trust me.”

“If you mean the entire Order of Alhazred, I can't speak to that.” Geldman made a tent of his hands by pressing his fingertips together. “Helen Arkwright, on her own, wouldn't think to distrust you. However, she goes rather in awe of Theophilus Marvell. In her heart she might not share his reservations, but she wouldn't oppose any precaution he took.”

“So Professor Marvell doesn't trust me.”

“Remember, Sean, I could be wrong.”

“But can't you read minds, Mr. Geldman? Like when I was trying to remember Boaz's name? And when Eddy was trying to say what she thought about the pharmacy, and she couldn't, but you said, ‘Exactly'?”

“I can catch unguarded thoughts, but a person's strong intention to shield his mind is enough to defeat me. As a paramagician, Marvell can deploy such a shield.”

“So you can't read his mind.”

“No. And if I could, would it be right to tell you his private thoughts?”

“You're telling me what you
think
he thinks.”

“Speculation is another matter. And you haven't answered my question.”

Boaz swallowed a last peanut, then, head cocked, joined Geldman in watching Sean. Except for the white bib, he could have passed for the crow in the
Founding
, Nyarlathotep's minion. “We haven't done magical ethics yet, but I guess it would be like reading someone's secret journal and then tweeting about it. Only worse.”

“Oh, very well said for a milk-teeth pup,” Boaz squawked.

“Be still,” Geldman said.

“But it is a pup, so it is.”

“Be still.”

Boaz launched himself off his perch and dive-bombed Sean's head, pulling up at the last second, so his claws only grazed hair. Then he flew up the staircase to the second floor, where he chattered to himself. His distance-muted rant wasn't like any language Sean had heard, unless you counted the grunts and squeals of movie Orcish.

“It's not only blood-spawn Servitors that get unruly,” Geldman said.

“No problem. Eddy's dog is worse.”

The way Geldman's eyes narrowed robbed his smile of real amusement. “I'd have thought Marvell would address magical ethics at once. It's one of his obsessions.”

“Is that why he hates Redemption Orne?”

“Does he hate him?”

“Well, he said Orne should have died long ago. You wouldn't say that about someone you
liked
.”

“It depends,” Geldman said. He struck his finger tent by dropping his hands into his lap. “Some believe that immortality or even significant life extension is a misuse of magic. Marvell's often taken me to task for my longevity. Yet we remain colleagues.”

A whipcrack of incredulous anger lashed Sean, unsoftened by the green candles. “That's freaking rude, though! Like asking, ‘how come you haven't dropped dead yet?'”

Geldman laughed, the candle-flame motes jittering in his eyes. “I assure you, Sean, I don't let the Professor offend me. He has strong objections to immortality, which the Order largely shares. It tolerates me because I commit the lesser sin of living beyond a normal human span.”

“You're not immortal?”

“Not as Orne is. Eventually I'll get tired, my magic will wane. There's only one way for a human to gain immortality, and I decided against that long ago.”

Orne had named the way during his first chat session with Sean. “The Communion of the Outer Gods.”

“The Communion of Nyarlathotep, to be precise. But isn't it odd how our talk has wandered to that? I only wanted to know you wouldn't let Daniel's apprenticeship push you two apart. You ought to be friends, I think.”

Sean had no objection to that.

It was a loud thought, because Geldman said, “I'm glad to hear it. But to go back to Professor Marvell. It's actually Orne he distrusts, and so your relationship to Orne can't help but trouble him.”

“So I shouldn't worry about being held back?”

“Accepting the situation would wear less on your nerves.”

“Or about him thinking immortality sucks?”

“Are you in favor of immortality, Sean?”

“I don't know, but I don't like him coming down on you.”

“You're kind to take my part.”

“What's so terrible about living a long time, anyway? Or even being immortal?”

“No doubt you'll ponder those questions when you study magical ethics. Right now I imagine Cybele has led the tour to the soda fountain, so—”

The word
soda fountain
conjured Boaz, who flapped downstairs and lighted on Geldman's right shoulder. As they walked the white corridor to the shop, the crow made a perilous clinging transit to his master's left shoulder and pivoted to Sean. “Learned your lesson?” he inquired.

“I guess,” Sean said.

“Good boy. You get a drink. Lemon or root beer or chocolate. No? Like it red? Cherry's red, and strawberry's red, and blood's red. But no blood for you.”

“Nonsensical bird,” Geldman said with surprising severity.

 

7

When
Boaz asked Sean if he'd learned his lesson, Sean said yes mainly to avoid a dive-bombing. But he
had
learned two important things during his visit to the pharmacy. One, that Marvell didn't trust him, now that he knew Sean was Orne-spawn. Also, that living a very long time had made Geldman so chill, he could shrug off Marvell's prejudice against people who lived a very long time. And come on, as long as a magician didn't hurt anyone in the process, why shouldn't he extend his life?

Going into class Tuesday morning, Sean was all set to ask the question, but Marvell went straight to the dry-erase board and wrote
EIDOLON
on it. “Eye-
doe
-lin,” he pronounced the word. “Greek for ‘image' or ‘idol.' In English, for our purposes, it means ‘ideal.' An ideal is an abstraction, a perfect
idea
about something. In magic,
eidolon
has special meanings.”

Under
EIDOLON,
Marvell drew an amoeba radiating yellow squiggles. “Azathoth, who emits pure but chaotic energy, blind force.”

To the amoeba's right, he drew a bat-winged eye with three slit pupils. “Nyarlathotep, who imposes order on blind force. The result is what we call creation-eidolons—ideal patterns for creating particular types of energy or matter. You could call them the blueprints for everything.”

The creation-eidolon he drew issuing from Nyarlathotep was a neat black box. He connected it via arrow to a clump of blue bubbles: “Yog-Sothoth,” Marvell named the bubbles. “Who acts as guardian for the creation-eidolons, a sort of cosmic library.”

Daniel typed like a madman. He and Sean had decided Daniel should take notes for them both, while Sean, the better artist, should copy drawings. He embellished his version of Marvell's diagram with letters, an
A
in Azathoth's “stomach,” an
N
crowning Nyarlathotep, a
Y
protruding from Yog-Sothoth like the legs of a stick figure plunged into the acid seething of the librarian god.

Marvell droned on. “Only Nyarlathotep can fashion creation-eidolons, but all magicians impose will on force,
intending
it to do one thing or another. Some intentions
direct
energy, while other intentions
substantiate
it, making it material or changing one material into another. Daniel, some examples of directed force?”

Daniel reeled off, “Telekinesis, telepathy, precognition, illusion, clairvoyance, pyrokinesis.”

“Sean, of substantiated force?”

The first one was easy: “Summoning, Professor, if you give the summoned thing an actual body in our plane.”

“And?”

“Um, alchemy, and shape-shifting.”

“Yes. And?”

There was a major one with a name he couldn't remember under the stress of Marvell's gaze. “Some psycho-thing. Shub-Niggurath does it.”

Marvell cocked an eyebrow, then drew in red a tree trunk with toothy mouths and flailing tentacles. “Shub-Niggurath, who transforms creation-eidolons from idea to reality. We call the process?”

Psycho, psycho, psycho-something from the Bible—

But Marvell waited only seconds before asking, “Do you know, Daniel?”

Cornered, Daniel had to answer: “Psychogenesis, Professor.”

Okay, Sean wouldn't have come up with that anytime soon. Still.

Marvell gave Daniel an approving nod. “Correct. But psychogenesis belongs solely to the Outer Gods. Let's return to the kind of intentions that have practical applications in human magic—”

Practical applications, finally. Sean jumped in: “Professor? I was wondering—so, I formed a magical intention when I summoned the Servitor?”

Marvell had begun to erase the board. He didn't turn back to the table until he had finished. “No, that's exactly what you didn't do. Orne gave you a spell devised by Enoch Bishop, and the intention to summon a certain familiar is inherent in its symbolism and incantations. To put it bluntly, Sean, you borrowed Enoch Bishop's intention. His will formalized.”

“But I was the one who intended to call
this
Servitor, so doesn't that count?”

Marvell gazed upward; when he spoke, it was to the distant ceiling: “I'm concerned, Sean. You always drift back to the summoning. It strikes me you're trying to make one act of secondhand magic into your claim to fame.”

The ice water always on the table during class remained on its tray, but Sean felt as though a poltergeist had poured the whole pitcher down his back. Daniel's chair creaked. Sean didn't dare look at him, so he kept looking at Marvell.

And Marvell kept addressing the ceiling: “That's not necessary, you know. The Order acknowledges the potential that allowed you to act as an extension cord between Enoch's intent—the spell—and the energy Enoch's Master gifted you. But you didn't shape the intent or independently gather the energy, and it will be some time before you learn how. So slow down, please. Stop dwelling on last summer and keep to the task at hand.”

“I didn't mean it like that, Professor.”

“Perhaps not, Sean.”

Daniel's chair hadn't creaked again. Was he still there? Yeah, but he was posing for a statue of
Dude Totally Absorbed in His Laptop.

“Well,” Marvell said, and smiled as if he hadn't just delivered a swift nut-kicking. “We'll continue tomorrow. I have a seminar in Boston. You two have enough reading to get you to two o'clock?”

Daniel said, “Yes, Professor,” for both of them.

In his wake, Marvell left an oppressive silence. The library clock read eleven thirty, not too early for lunch, but Sean already had a gutful of humble pie to digest.

Daniel closed his laptop and dutifully got out a book Geldman had given him. Its catchy title was
On the Mysteries of the True Atlantis off Novo-Anglia, and of its Origins and Denizens,
and its author was everyone's favorite, “A Gentleman of Boston in the Massachusetts Commonwealth.” On the cover was a woodcut of two Puritan guys in a boat surrounded by mermaids and mermen, though the merpeople seemed to have frog legs, not fish tails. Frog faces, too, and Sean had probably looked as goggle eyed as them when Marvell had let him have it.

Instead of opening the book, Daniel tugged at his neck brace as if it chafed him. It probably did, hot as the last week had been. Glad for any distraction, Sean said, “Dude, you really have to wear that thing all the time?”

“What?”

“Your brace. I mean, your neck doesn't seem to bother you much.”

Daniel dropped his hand from the foam collar. “My neck feels okay. But my doctor said to wear this for two more months.”

“Sucks. That's the rest of the summer.”

“I can deal.” Daniel nudged his book aside. “Look, Sean. I believed you.”

Sean blinked. “Believed me what?”

“That you didn't ask Marvell about the summoning to brag.”

It was a relief for the elephant in the room to stomp center stage. “I just wanted a straight answer.”

“I figured. You did kind of interrupt his lecture, though.”

“So I pissed him off.”

“Yeah, but it was still harsh, saying you didn't do anything magical on your own.”

“What if he was right?”

“In that case, would Redemption Orne still be after you? Anyway, I never heard Marvell talk like that.”

“That's because he thinks you're great.”

Daniel drew in a sharp breath.

Damn. “And you are! You and Eddy. Plus he doesn't have to worry you'll do something stupid.”

“He's right about Eddy.” Daniel smiled weakly. “Me, who knows? But why should Marvell think you'll mess up?”

It had been more than a week since Sean discovered the deep-down reason for Marvell's uneasiness, and he hadn't even told Eddy yet. She had to be the first to know about his connection to Orne, because ever since their pirate–spy blood pact in the third grade, Eddy had been his secret-keeper, and a blood pact had no expiration date. But maybe he could make Daniel understand about Marvell without going into his crazy ancestry. “It's because of Orne,” he said.

“What about him?”

“Marvell's worried about why Orne wants me for his apprentice. Like, does Orne sense I have dark-side potential? Like, I might sign up with Nyarlathotep after all?”

Daniel shook his head. “Marvell said all that?”

“Well, not exactly, but he did say I have to go slow with magic. And Geldman said yesterday, the way Marvell feels about Orne is probably the reason I'm not getting a mentor until next year.”

“You're not?”

Oh right, that was another thing he'd kept to himself. “Nope. I'm not even allowed to do any practical magic until then.”