The Necromancer's Grimoire Read online

  Women returned with bowls and pitchers of water and cloth. They stopped, incredulous, when they encountered Kemal kneeling in the doorway. Their eyes darted quickly over the two of them. Nadira recognized their indecision, though her years as a servant seemed a lifetime ago. She spoke to Kemal in Arabic, “Tell them to come in and set it all down.”

  He spoke to the women who stepped carefully past him on the floor to carry their burdens inside. One of them caught her eye as she laid some brightly colored silk on the bedding. Nadira nodded to her. No one moved until the women were gone. Kemal spoke to her as a hunter might calm his angry hawk, “I must convince you that all is well.”

  “Speak until your words run out. I will not believe you until my men are released from their prison.”

  Kemal stared at her with his dark eyes. “You say they are your bodyguards.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then if I release them they will come here to claim you. They will fight for you and die. I cannot release them without assuring their deaths.”

  She turned away and paced within the small room. Kemal waited patiently on the threshold. She let him see her annoyance as she passed him for a turn back to the window, then a turn again toward the door. He was right.

  “Send them a note.”

  “They can read?”

  “My cleric…” She stopped when she saw his face. “You have separated them?”

  He spread his hands. “The infidel priest cannot set foot inside the barracks. The captain of the janissaries forbids it. He hates priests.”

  She balled her hands into fists. “He is not a priest,” she grumbled between clenched teeth. She could no longer feel any of her friends and knew it was because of this fury. Quell it. Quell it. Disperse…she imagined the hot anger cooling in mountain snows…she let it flow away from her, like small streams that join a larger brook. Kemal waited. She cursed him for his patience and a wall of emotion rose up and blinded her again. She opened her hands, shook the tension from them. Slowly, a warmth that was not anger filled her heart and she could see again.

  Montrose put a hand to his chest. He could feel her touching him and assuring him that she was in no danger. She sighed and watched him as he mirrored her breath with his own sigh. His trust in her was complete. Corbett and Calvin, however, were wary and disturbed by this interruption to their mission. They were deep in a conversation entirely in French. DiMarco was not so perturbed. He had been in Istanbul before, she realized, and was confident that his fine clothing set him apart from the others and gave him an advantage. He was able to speak Greek to his jailors and to bargain for extra food and a clean blanket with some coins from his purse.

  William, however, was nearly insensible with a cold terror. He was safe in a small dark room, but the soldiers outside the grating taunted him, they showed him their blades and shouted at him in a language he did not understand. Nadira sent a tendril of comfort to her friend, but it could not penetrate his chest. She felt it bounce back to her. William’s wall of fear was solid.

  She blinked back to Kemal. “Release the cleric. He is not a priest.”

  Kemal’s cheek twitched. “He is a stranger here. He is in more danger outside those walls than in.”

  Nadira took up her pacing again. Kemal’s logic continued to defeat her. She had one more idea. She paused at the screen, touched the carved wood. “Send word to the baron’s friend Angelo Borelli in the frenki neighborhood of Pera. Have his men come for them. Vouch for them. Keep them as his ‘honored guests’ in the prison of his house until their papers are secured.”

  She heard Kemal get to his feet behind her. She turned slowly. “Do this and I will speak with the sultan’s men and tell them what they want to know.” She watched his face as he considered.

  After a long reflection, he nodded. “I will send word tonight to the Porte, but there may not be a response from the ministry until tomorrow, or even the next day.” He held on to the last word until it turned into a question.

  She made a resigned noise and waved a hand at him. “Done.”

  She was alone for only a few minutes to make herself more presentable before servants came in with food and drink. Nadira dined alone, served by silent women who brought her a spiced drink in fine cups. This complication to their travel plans might not delay them too badly. She took a drink of her lemon water and honey. The sultan may be able to help them if she pleased him somehow. A woman bent to refill her cup. She was aware of the servants’ curious looks and could hear their whispers behind the screens.

  None were Turks, all were captives from other lands controlled by the sultan. One of the older women told her in Arabic that she would be bathed before retiring for the night. Warm water in pitchers and brass basins were laid out. Two women helped her with her hair and her clothing. Nadira succumbed to their ministrations; the dirt from her travel was cleared away as her mind filled with questions. The necromancer called for her to come to him. The sultan had agreed. She knew they both required her services, but the details had yet to be revealed. It was only as she calmed with warm scented water and tender touch that she remembered striking Kemaleddin, reis of the sultan’s fleet. She looked down at her palms.

  These tendrils can be used as weapons.

  She spent three days exploring Kemaleddin’s library and garden with the ever present janissaries before she received a note on beautiful paper in elegant script telling her that her men were now guests of Angelo Borelli, Venetian merchant of fine horses and donkeys and sometime trader in frenki goods. Their weapons and possessions had been returned to them. The note courteously suggested that she welcome a visit from the sultan’s ministers in return.

  This cannot be much different than an audience with the pope. Yet it was. She could feel the dark cloud the necromancer had placed around the sultan’s person. She understood that he would work to keep the sultan away from her. She paced her room, whirling her thoughts in a way that might latch on to what was to happen. She could not risk travelling, though she desired to speak to Richard’s professor. She refused to leave her body on the carpet, unprotected. Without someone to watch over it she must remain bound to the ground.

  She spent the time practicing with her tendrils. They came easily to her direction and would fly to any target she chose. But there had to be a target. When she had no clear vision of where to send them, they floated about her in a glimmering cloud.

  She tried gathering a ball of them and throwing them at a brass urn, to see if she could strike objects or make them move. She could not. So far, the power of her tendrils was the power over minds and flesh. Brass and wood were safe from her. She leaned out of the window and watched the gardener tend the plants in the courtyard. She sent a tendril to him. He did not feel it enter. She felt his thoughts, his feelings. He was a simple man and held no knowledge of her or her companions. His master was kind and just. She knew that already.

  She withdrew the tendril and moved back into the room. She had not tried to contact the necromancer since that day in Kemal’s cabin. She did not want his tendrils in her. She covered her heart with a hand. If the tendrils can be a weapon, can they not also be a shield? She whirled the silver threads into a disc and placed it over her chest. We shall see. And the sultan. She closed her eyes and imagined him. Kemal had told her his name. He would be easy to find. She could see the spires of his palace from her window. But a dark hole surrounded him. Her tendrils seemed to enter the darkness and dissolve into sparks that dissipated into dust. The necromancer’s shield was bigger and more powerful than her threads. She felt a twinge of fear and quickly quelled it. He has had this power far longer than I, and the benefit of mighty teachers. And he has a book.

  She turned her mind to the book, trying to feel for it. A blast of heat struck her and she fell to the carpet.

  Oh. She rolled on to her back and put her hand over her eyes. He knows why I am here. He sees Corbett, the elixirs and the Hermetica.

  I am not ready for him.

  A
knock at the door. “Are you ready, Hanim-effendi? May I come in?”

  She got to her feet and smoothed her silks.

  The servant girls must have done excellent work, she thought, for the admiration in Kemal’s eyes as he entered the room could not be hidden, though he lowered them politely when he realized how much they conveyed.

  Nadira waved a hennaed hand at him, inviting him to sit on the cushion the girls had placed by the door. She adjusted the brown and gold veils that covered her hair, wrapping the ends around her face so that only her kohl-lined eyes were visible.

  Kemal arranged himself on the cushion, knelt and arranged his own robes around him. Nadira preferred to stand. She found she could hardly sit still anymore, and that moving about the room helped her to think. The long silks caressed her legs as she paced the room and created a fragrant breeze with every step. He looked up at her expectantly.

  “I have been transformed,” she said.

  “Indeed. I hardly recognized you, Hanim-effendi, Sultana.” He had added an extra honorific to her name. He bowed his head, then raised his eyes again, but did not look directly at her. “The Padishah has commanded that you are to be considered a member of his family.”

  “I am surprised, and not ungrateful,” she agreed. “Though I am not so simple to believe the sultan does this,” she indicated the fine clothing and splendid room, “out of respect for the memory of my father.”

  Kemal appeared uncomfortable. “You are valuable, Hanim.”

  She smiled. “So I’ve been told. I have been busy with visitors for three days, Reis.”

  He set his hands on his knees in the manner of the Turks, but he did not lower his eyes completely. She saw what he wanted to say with them.

  She continued, “They tell me that today I will meet with Evren Farshad, the Padishah’s magus.” She watched him carefully. He was disturbed. “I am to be brought before three of his eminence’s councilors.” When there was a long pause, she added, “Speak.”

  “Hanim, I have heard this as well.”

  “I would know what it is they want.”

  “Hanim, it is not my place to say.”

  She shook her head slightly. “Of course not,” she turned to face him and let a tendril snake toward him, but instead of piercing his heart she sent it between his eyes.

  He put both hands to his face, “Stop, Hanim—ah.”

  “There is pain only when you resist,” she told him, but thinned the thread anyway.

  “No, Hanim. I cannot tell you. Do not ask.” He rubbed the spot on his forehead where the tendril entered him.

  “I will not go to the meeting blind and deaf,” she insisted. “I detect dark looks and frigid resolve from the messengers. I cannot get an answer from them because they do not know and because they are afraid.” She took another step and another and turned at the wall. “However,” she paced the length of the small room, “You do know. Tell me.”

  “I cannot be responsible.” She glanced at him over her shoulder. He sat stiffly like a courtier, hands on knees. When she turned to face him, he salaamed her gracefully with a bow from the waist, as he touched his heart, his lips and his forehead.

  “Tell me, Ahmed Kemaleddin, Reis.” She pitched her voice to command him.

  “I regret to disappoint you, Nadira Hanim-effendi, Sultana.”

  Her thread picked up his resistance, his determination. He was very strong. She set her mouth in frustration and sent a stronger wave of resolve along the tendril. It grew brighter.

  “Hanim, no…” his discomfort was apparent in the stiffening of his shoulders. He put both hands to the sides of his head and shut his eyes.

  This is going to be difficult. Nadira moved gracefully past him and closed the heavy door. She moved to the window and pulled the wood screens closed. Then she turned to Kemal and followed the silver tendril with a golden one from her heart to his, while twisting his mind open with the other as she moved closer.

  He toppled from his cushion to the floor and lay in a fetal position, gasping. His eyes were still closed against her attempts, his arms wrapped around his chest to ward off her attack. She felt a wave of pity, but quickly dismissed it. Pity would only lessen her resolve, and there was no other way to get the information. She would not meet the darkness of the necromancer with nothing but a flimsy shield of light.

  She knelt before the reis. He began to groan softly and roll back and forth as her silver and gold tendrils meandered around his body like living skeins of thread. She touched him on his shoulder. She felt his aversion to her touch through the cloth. He became very still.

  “Do not touch me, Hanim,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Ahmed Kemaleddin,” she breathed, ignoring the request. “Now. You will tell me who this man is and why he is feared by even the great Padishah himself.”

  He resisted with thoughts of great waves upon the sea, memories of the cliffs that broke the water off the shores of Lebanon. He grit his teeth and thought of the blasts from his brass cannon and the iron balls that flew from their mouths. The cords of his neck stood out with the effort of resisting her. She saw firm anchors and then the great towering rocks of Gibraltar. She smiled at that last image.

  “You are strong, Reis. You are a mighty fortress like the mountains that guard the gentle sea from the wild ocean.” She gripped the rigid shoulders with both hands. His body was well-muscled and in its prime, made hard by many years of real work on scores of ships. He had many skills, but did not possess the one that could resist her. She bent down and placed a feather-light kiss upon his lips and broke him.

  She touched his forehead and he went limp. She willed him to open his eyes and he did. She climbed into their dark depths and saw Evren Farshad, the Sultan’s necromancer.

  The magus was a small man, and slight. Near to the reis’s age perhaps. She frowned. Yes, not yet fifty years. He was fond of luxury, wore his silk with flair and his turban tied in the Persian fashion. His trousers puffed at his ankles and his slippers were heavily embroidered by the tribal women of the north. He carried a staff, a tall rod topped with a small gold bull’s head. She squeezed the reis’ shoulders.

  “Kemal. I care not what he looks like. I care not that he enjoys young women nor that he buys his silks from the Hun traders rather than the Mamluks or that he prefers his dates and nuts soaked in honey. You will tell me what I want to know.”

  The reis labored to breathe. His chest rose and fell as though he had to force himself to draw air. Nadira glanced at the closed door. It would not do to have anyone enter for the next few minutes. She closed her eyes to focus on a lock and a barrier. A ward was set at the entrance. Anyone coming down the hall would feel an intense desire to be somewhere else.

  She blinked back to the reis. Though his mind resisted her, his body could not. She made herself more comfortable cross-legged on the floor. She lifted his shoulders to her lap and cradled his head on her knee. His turban dropped to the floor as his head tipped back over her arm and she stroked his forehead. Thick wavy black hair fell over his eyes and mingled with his beard. “Kemal, Kemal, Kemal…” She chanted, “Tell me, tell me, tell me.” His eyes remained tightly closed, his lips a straight line, then his whole body went rigid in a last feeble defense. She whirled multicolored lights around them both and when their strength was right, thrust them boldly into his heart.

  His body jerked hard and his mouth opened with a silent cry. Nadira was ready for this reaction and held him tightly. She stabbed a thick cord of golden light through the space between his eyes, holding him firmly by his shoulders.

  “Kemal, Kemal, Kemal,” she soothed. “The necromancer…he buys and sells death…tell me about him…tell me, tell me…”

  His eyes opened slowly as if forced by invisible fingers. She bent down to gaze into their depths, willing them to remain open and reveal to her what she required. His lips parted as he breathed in short shallow bursts. Nadira stroked the short beard over his cheek with her thumbs to soothe his body a
s her golden cord pried his mind apart and gave her the magus.

  She saw him come to court twenty years ago from the palaces of a city called Rayy, where he had studied for many years. Zarathustra. Persepolis. Yazatas. She frowned. These were strange words to her. She saw a desolate landscape of rocks and hills, high mountains in the distance and a great city. Not enough. Kemal would not give up his secrets.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered to him. She blew herself into Kemal’s eyes. His body jerked again as she entered him.

  Nadira gently brushed aside the ships and waves. She touched the wind and sails and they disappeared. She built for him a sturdy wall to protect the sensitive memories of his mother and father, his brother and beloved nephew, and of a lovely delicate woman now long dead. She moved past his years in an academy where he was bent over scrolls and maps, his fingers inked with black as beautiful calligraphy blossomed under his steady hands. She moved past his apprenticeship on the sea. She touched the memories of terrifying storms and the sharp images of sea battles, dead men floating on red swells, crossbows and cannon. He had been a pirate in his youth, a privateer with papers from Istanbul giving him permission to prey on Ottoman enemies. He had terrified the Mediterranean for twenty years. The mere sighting of his pennant flying from a mast was enough to raise the prices of grain and silk in Venice. She pushed those memories aside.

  Tell me. She saw great waves of energy spill from the necromancer’s staff and wash over all the men at court. The Padishah feared him and desired his service at the same time. The image of the Grimoire appeared next to the necromancer. It was almost never out of his sight. An adept was tasked with its care; a young man in white robes carried the book. The apprentice was proud of his position and followed reverently his master’s every step. She asked another question and was answered with the image of wealthy men coming to a sumptuous room with their various desires. Money changed hands. The necromancer consulted his book; there was light and sound. The customers were satisfied. What were they asking for? What did they see?