Black Madonna

12

She was apprehensive, and the trim, simple, picture-book quality of a springtime English garden did not reassure her. As Serrin led Kristen up to the cottage, the enigmatic cat was nowhere to be seen, having doubtless taken its prize away to a hiding place safe from prying human-or elven-eye’s.

“But why would he want to talk to me?” Kristen asked again.

“I told you, maybe he won’t want to talk, just to see you,” Serrin said carefully. “He may want to offer us some protection, that’s all.”

“But why didn’t he want to see Michael as well?” By now she’d had time to think about this. The point hadn’t occurred to her initially, gently mellowed as she’d been by English ale and surprised by the invitation.

“I don’t know,” Serrin said a little testily, “Perhaps he will. Later.” To his relief, they’d reached the front entrance, without any need to knock for admittance since Merlin already stood just inside the door, which opened at their approach.

“He will see you now. Just go up the stairs,” Merlin said pleasantly. “As to us”-he turned to Kristen-“I think he’ll call if he needs us. Can I offer you some tea?”

“Oh, um, yes, thank you,” she said, a little taken aback and giving her husband a nervous glance. Serrin had not been able to hide from her that this was a spirit taking human form. Streak had joked about it back at the pub, and Serrin had tried to explain exactly what Merlin was. Kristen had seen only one spirit in her life, a city spirit conjured by an angry Xhosa shaman, and it hadn’t looked much like Merlin. This one looked deceptively mundane-mundane in the sense of flesh and blood-but his slightly crooked smile was open and friendly and she liked him.

“Tell me about the Rain Queen,” Serrin heard Merlin say as he guided the young woman into the small kitchen, from whence issued the scent of toasting muffins and tea. He grinned, ducking his head as he climbed the tiny wooden stairs up to the landing.

The old elf stood waiting, framed in a doorway by afternoon light streaming through the windows. His appearance was in no way imposing; he was neither exceptionally tall for an elf, nor short of stature, and while lean, he wasn’t thin. His silvery hair was long, but not unkempt. and his eyes were gentle, not piercing or sharp. He gripped a hazel stick in a way that said he needed its support, and not just as an affectation, and his clothes were plain and dark blue without any ornate decoration. Had he been seen in a photograph, the most perceptive of viewers would not likely have considered him anything out of the ordinary.

Standing a meter away from him and meeting his gaze was different.

Serrin remembered an old man, a human, he’d known as a child. The man had studied what had been known as psychic phenomena in the years before the Awakening, and he’d been the first to see that the young elf was no mundane. It was due to him that Serrin had been selected for hermetic studies at a young age. Serrin remembered this man telling him of his own youth, over a century before the current age, when he’d sat on his grandfather’s knee and been told of his travels in the British merchant navy to lands unimagined: India, Africa, China.

“Hard to imagine, lad, but there wasn’t any trid then. There wasn’t even television-well, not in the homes of ordinary working people. So, I’d never seen a lion, or a tiger, or an elephant. And my grandpa told me such stories about them, and the places and sounds and sights, and the way the women bore baskets and water urns on their heads across the deserts, and the way the people dressed and how the stars were different in the southern skies. And I used to sit there speechless, not wanting him to ever stop telling me. I loved the old man in a different way to anyone else I ever knew, or ever could have known. These days, I see wonders around me that make me feel like I did when I was a child on his knee. And they’re going to be your wonders in this new world.”

Serrin remembered that old man, his grandfather’s close friend, and how he had been enthralled by the man’s firm sense of awe and wonder even in his late eighties. When he looked at the old elf, it all came back to him.

It was not the first time Serrin had been in the presence of someone imbued with unusual, or exceptional, power before. It wasn’t usually a comfortable experience. In his limited experience, such individuals were usually aloof and arrogant, or simply withdrawn, not people to make others feel at ease in their presence. The old elf, who was peering at him intently, was none of these things. Shaking. Serrin realized with a sense of profound shock that what he felt in the other elf’s presence was deep and intense love, a yearning realization of the goodness of this person that he’d never even seen until now. He felt faint, and when the old elf turned and took a shuffling step into his study, it was all Serrin could do to take a couple of faltering steps after him.

The room was too large, of course; that was obvious as soon as Serrin entered it. Every last centimeter of wall space was covered in hardwood shelving, crammed with grimoires and books of all kinds. There had to be thousands of them. From outside, it was obvious the room couldn’t possibly hold so many.

Hessler smiled at his wondering look. “Oh, that. It’s nothing. I just like this little old place and I had to get them all in here somehow. Takes Merlin an age to find things from storage and sometimes he’s busy. Won’t you sit down?”

It was a relief not to have to remain standing any longer. Serrin almost fell into the hard-backed chair across the desk from the gently smiling elf.

“There is a powerful mark on her,” Hessler said in his drowsy, gentle, delicately accented voice. It was obvious who he was talking about.

“Yes,” was all Serrin could think of to say.

“She could be killed at any time,” Hessler continued, even-voiced still.

“I imagine so,” Serrin said weakly, still trying to orient himself. Hessler’s presence was so powerful that it rendered him utterly passive, almost unable to speak.

“However, you did not come for my help with that, at least not initially,” Hessler observed. He took up an old-fashioned quill pen from his teak desk and toyed idly with it.

“That is so,” Serrin said, at last beginning to gather his with about him. “Though now that I know how serious that is, it’s the most important thing to me.”

“I think we can deal with it,” Hessler said pleasantly. “So, now, why don’t you tell me why you came in the first place?”

He knows, Serrin thought, but for once, he was wrong. The old elf did not know in every respect, but by the time Serrin had finished, he certainly did.

“So you came to ask me about the Priory of Sion,” Hessler said thoughtfully, turning the quill over in his fingers as Serrin’s story trailed off. “That’s a very large question, Serrin. We could be here for a week and, from what you’ve told me, you don’t have a week to stay and listen to the answer.”

True. “We wondered why they’d be interested in what we were doing, why they’d have sent the spirit to warn us off.”

“Go on.”

“I can’t believe that a hermetic organization can have any direct interest in Matrix activities and computer-system sabotage,” Senmn said slowly. “Perhaps some individual member or members might. But not the organization. At least, I can’t see how they could.”

Hessler’s eyes were glinting slightly. “That seems reasonable.”

“So I thought,” Serrin said tentatively, the pieces beginning to fit together even as he spoke them, “that they must be taking an interest on one of two counts. One, they know the decker who’s threatening to bring down the house of cards. Or two, the icon he left is some kind of danger to them. Perhaps it threatens to implicate them. I can’t really understand the logic there, but that’s because I don’t know exactly what this organization does. There’s a hell of a lot of books, a huge mass of data! but there are a dozen different stories, and without detailed knowledge we can’t know which is true.”

“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.

Serrin was hurt; it felt almost like a reproach. He sat down beside her and took one of her hands in his, cupping his palms around her warm hand.

“Hessler will help us,” he said, looking her full in the eyes. “There’s just something I have to do for him. It isn’t much.”

Her pupils dilated a little and he could see she was alarmed.

“It really isn’t much,” he said again.

“What does he want?” She was clearly worried, maybe even frightened.

“Nothing for himself. It’s for Merlin. Spirits need power, karma, to grow. He wants karma from me.”

She didn’t really understand the concept, but she knew it was part of his nature and power, the core of him, and she opened her mouth to protest. He raised a hand and placed an index finger over her lips to quiet her.

“I said, it isn’t really so much. I’ll regain it in time. It’s a fair price. No, it’s better than a fair price.”

“Why can’t I do it? It’s because of me,” she pleaded.

“It’s better coming from a magician, and it isn’t because of you. Not really. It wasn’t you who started us out on this trail. So don’t worry about it.”

It was only a momentary gesture, but he saw her suck back her lower lip and bite a little at the inside of it, to keep it from trembling. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, and they stayed that way until they heard Merlin’s footsteps coming back down the stairs. When the spirit returned, Serrin was not surprised by its more serious countenance.