The Wizard of London (38 page)

“Smelly,
anyway.” There were many things she could have talked to him about, but
none of them were as important as simply being here in his arms, and
luxuriating in the feeling that this was the best, the only place in the world
for her, and that she would never have felt like this about anyone else. This
was the still center of the whirling universe, where everything was at rest. In
its own way, the jewel in the heart of the lotus, the place where love was, had
been, and always would be. Buddhists, of course, would argue that point,
preferring their way of detachment from the world. But on the whole, she preferred
hers.

So
she would not spoil the moment with anything other than things that would make
him smile. So she told him about Tommy’s latest misadventure until the
bed shook with their laughter.

***

Cordelia
wished there was a way to look at “herself” in a mirror.

It
turned out that there
was
a way to turn the face of your soul-self
into something other than a reflection of the real world “you.”
She’d had to search through some excruciatingly boring manuscripts to
find it, plowing with determination through things that ranged from absurd to
outright duplicitous, but she had found it. She thought that she had done a
creditable job, given the cryptically worded instructions. Fortunately she had
done enough out-of-body work with David that she knew what his
“self” looked like. It would have been a dreadful mistake to have
appeared in something other than the chainmail and surcoat he habitually wore
in that semblance.

Perhaps
it would be a wise choice to gradually have him wear a helm as well. That way
she would have less chance of losing hold of the likeness of his face.

Yes,
that would be a good idea. It should be easy enough, a little suggestion that
if out-of-body work was becoming hazardous, a helm might be in order, to remind
the soul-self to keep its defenses up. It was a very good thing that what the
avatar
wore
was often as variable as the personality within. David,
the most conservative of mages, had been known to vary the outfitting of his
own avatar to suit the occasion, now and again. No one would wonder that he had
assumed a helmet, and he himself could implement the change without much
thought.

So
the next part of the experiment could proceed as planned; to discover if one
living soul could be used to push out another. The child that was silent was a
weaker personality than the one that hummed. A dose of laudanum mixed with
other drugs and a great deal of honey in its bedtime milk would ensure that its
hold on its body was weaker still. There was a distinct advantage in that the
second child’s spirit would be drawn more strongly to the body that
rightfully belonged to it. That would simulate her own will driving her to
inhabit David’s shell.

After
watching the two children sharply for an hour or so, she was satisfied that she
had set up the best possible conditions. It did appear that the child about to
be un-housed was another of the Peggoty sort, however. Unlike the other, which
was at least learning to play with toys in the manner of a normal child, the
boy just sat there staring vaguely at whatever object his nursemaid put in his
hands, now and again turning it over and over and studying it, but otherwise
showing no signs of real interest in it. And it was getting fat, in a pale and
puffy sort of way, from inactivity. Clearly only the scant rations at the
orphanage had kept it so slender.

Useless
in every way. Best she get rid of it now, as one would dispose of an unwanted
puppy.

But
she also wanted to eliminate every thought of suspicion, so she went in and
exclaimed about the child’s lassitude to the nursemaid.

“Yes’m,”
the little nursemaid agreed, bobbing a curtsy. “He don’t look
right, and that’s a fact, Mum. But he being a foundling and all, they
sometimes are sickly.”

As
if your brothers and sisters weren’t
! Cordelia thought with
amusement, knowing, as the maid did not know, that her mistress knew everything
of note about her family, including her mother’s three miscarriages and
five dead children. One in every two poor children died in infancy, and it was
just too bad that Cordelia didn’t have a way to harvest or use those
spirits.

Ah
well, perhaps the answer lay in her researches. Now she had more than one
lifetime to look into it, and she no longer felt quite such a sense of urgency.

But
for a show of concern, she sent for the apothecary—not the doctor, that
would have been an excess—who shook his head and opined that he did not
know of too many orphanage children able to thrive even in the best of
situations. “Bad blood, My Lady,” he pontificated. “Mothers
and fathers both usually addicted to gin, opium, hashish—bad blood there
and no mistake. Sometimes it’s just as well that they don’t
thrive.”

She
nodded and the nursemaid nodded, as he prescribed a tonic, a bottle of which he
produced with such readiness that she knew he had brought it here on purpose to
sell it to her. As was appropriate, however, he did not offer it to her, nor
did he name a price. He gave it to the nursemaid, who thanked him. A bill would
be forthcoming, of course, and the housekeeper would deal with it.

There.
The stage was set for tonight.

When
the apothecary had left, she waited for the nursemaid to take the boys off to
their bath, and confiscated the tonic, which might be good or ill, might even
be the same ingredients as her own potion, only weaker, but did not suit her
purposes. She poured the contents down a drain, and substituted her own
mixture. The strength of what she poured in there would have put a grown man to
sleep, much less a small child.

Then
she waited.

She
had been forced to make do now that it was summer and she could not expect an
ice-laden wind to do her work for her, replacing the cold of winter with drugs
and powerful magic. Instead of arranging for the window to be opened, when the
nursemaid was safely asleep (thanks to a heavy dose of laudanum in
her
tea) she made her way quietly into the nursery where the two boys lay on their
cots.

With
her arms outstretched, and hands cupped upward, she silently mouthed the words
of invocation, and felt power drain from her in response. A chill, white mist
formed slowly over the two cots, and settled over the two boys. This was called
“The breath of the snow dragon,” and was the opposite side of the
“breath of the dragon” invocation used by Fire Mages. That brought
a furnace heat; this summoned the wind off the glaciers itself.

When
she was satisfied that both boys were chilled to the bone and to all intents
and purposes very near death, she closed her eyes and reached with spirit hands
toward the strong one’s body.

The
spirit already drifted a little above it; now she had to detach it altogether.

The
incantation she used was one that would have made any good and decent Elemental
Mage cover his ears in horror. She had found it in an ancient book that
allegedly contained spells dating from the time of Atlantis. Whether that was
the truth or not, this was the only one that actually accomplished what it was
said to do.

The
silver cord connecting soul with body shattered. She snatched up the spirit and
shoved it toward the second boy’s body, at the same time repeating her
blasphemous words.

The
first child was already trying to reestablish a connection with a physical
body, the end of the “cord” drifting about like the groping
tentacle of a cephalopod. As she had hoped, because his spirit was the stronger
of the two, it made the connection with the body that had originally belonged
to it before the second boy re-anchored himself. The soul-self sank into the
body, as the displaced ghost drifted toward the empty husk.

But
before it could reach its former home, she had summoned a shield around it,
preventing it from entering, and making it into one of her servants; this was a
bit of magic she had long been familiar with and had used innumerable times.
The glow of the shield surrounded the spirit and shrank, forming a kind of
“skin,” then faded.

Now
it was hers. It could neither move back into the vacant body, nor go anywhere
else. The spirit was sealed to the earthly plane, unless someone could be found
to open a passage into the Other Side for it, or until it willed one open for
itself.

It
looked very like Peggoty had, a gray-white sketch in the air of an androgynous
child figure, as it opened its hollow eyes to stare at her. “Go and
play,” she told it, and it turned away from her and drifted off, through
the wall. It would linger somewhere about, just as Peggoty had, until she
summoned it. Unlike Peggoty, it probably could be summoned by whatever means
she chose without frightening it unduly.

And
then she felt it, the triumph, the glee. It had worked! By heavens, it had worked!

And
she allowed herself the indulgence of a feral smile, unconcerned, now, for its
effects on her face, the possibility of wrinkles or creases. Because very soon
now, it would not matter.

Not
at all. Not when she could discard this useless body like the outworn thing
that it was, for a fine new replacement, a replacement that was in all senses
superior in every way to the original.

***

David
Alderscroft could not sleep.

It
had been a productive, but profoundly boring day. He knew that he should feel pleased
about it, but all he could manage was a weary and resigned sense that he had
accomplished what he had come for. Although the eminent politicians here were
unclear as to why he wanted a new minister appointed to the Cabinet and exactly
what the minister would be representing, it was a virtual certainty that he
would get to be that minister.

A
Minister of Magical Sciences, although that, of course, was not what he would
actually be called. And no more than a handful of people would ever know that
this was, in fact, the purview of the office.

It
was more than time for such a Ministry, however. More than time for the
Elemental Masters to step forward and put their hands on the reins of
government. Too much secrecy had been going on over the decades, and at some
point, without the cooperation of the government, that secrecy was going to
fall apart.

He
paced the length of the terrace in the darkness as he considered the
night’s work. None of the men here tonight would ever know that this
“Ministry of Esoteric Sciences” was in fact about magic. Only the
Cabinet and the Prime Minister would be told this. But revealing the knowledge
at a high level virtually ensured that it would never be revealed at a lower
level.

At
this point, in David’s view, such protection was absolutely vital. There
had been too many near misses already, moments when he thought for certain some
enterprising soul would uncover the Elemental Masters along with the proof to
convince the skeptical. And then what?

Well,
in worst-case scenario, there could be a kind of latter-day witch hunt, a
crusade of the ordinary mortals against the extraordinary magicians among them.
People did not like the notion that there were those who, by accident of
breeding, had some powers or abilities that could not otherwise be attained. At
bottom, even the lowest of day laborers swilling his gin was certain that
nothing separated him from a baron of industry except luck. To discover, that
there were people who had abilities he could never dream of having would certainly
inflame tempers to the raging point.

And
of course the government could not know of such things without wanting to have
some form of control over them. There would be lists and registries, and fines
for “practicing magic without a license.” No, it would be a
nightmare.

But
if the government already knew—if, in fact, it was complicit in covering
up the existence of magic and magicians—then it would have every reason
to continue doing so. Incorporating the service of magicians into, say, the
intelligence services, the “Great Game,” as it were—that made
a great deal more sense.

And
it would give added impetus to keeping the existence of mages a secret. After
all, there was no point in allowing that secret to leak out if a great deal of
foreign intelligence was coming in by means of magic.

David
already suspected that other governments had come to the same conclusion,
although he had no direct evidence. The French of course—bah! Secretive
and with logic as convoluted as the new ornamental balustrades of the Metro
stations! They had probably been employing Elemental Mages since the time of
Napoleon! And the Italians, of course, most probably in the Vatican. The
Prussians were a bit more straightforward and the idea might not have ever
occurred to them—but then again, they were ruthless and would use any
tool that came to hand. The Balkans, thank the good Lord, were so disorganized
that it was unlikely there was any concerted effort to use magic by the various
factions of Anarchists and the like.

The
Americans… unlikely. They simply did not believe in what they could not
see, weigh, measure.

The
Spanish, perhaps, given their mystical bent, but they were nonplayers so far as
the world stage was concerned.

Who
did that leave? India, China, inscrutable and of all nations, they were the
most likely to be employing magical agents.

He
grew tired of hearing his own footsteps on the terrazzo, and decided to stroll
down into the garden instead. Maybe his thoughts would slow in the sultry,
rose-scented air, and he would be able to get some sleep.

His
own muffled footsteps on the turf, slow and deliberate, were the only sound
around him. Insects stilled their chatter as he passed, so that he moved in a
circle of silence. It seemed a little odd, but not unpleasant, so he merely
noted the fact as he passed on, attempting to empty his mind so that he could,
eventually, sleep.