The Necromancer's Grimoire Read online

  DiMarco opened his eyes slowly and stared at Nadira. “You will find my Maria?” his voice was so soft she had to see his lips move to know the words.

  “I will find her,” she promised with conviction.

  The old man’s eyes reddened and grew glossy. All his anger and prideful posturing seemed to ebb away. “It is important,” he whispered to her.

  “I know it is,” she told him, feeling a wave of compassion for the old man. “I will find her and bring her to you.”

  The sound of laughter turned all their heads toward the river where the men emerged from the riverbank with long sticks of fish hanging from their gills. Calvin gestured for DiMarco to follow him to the fire where William bent over the low flames. Corbett put his hand in the small of her back. “The baron does not need to know about the sultan’s magus,” he warned.

  She nodded.

  “Nor should he know the lands to which you will travel.” He was grim. “If he suspected I plan to send you to hell…”

  She shook her head in agreement.

  “And Nadira,” he added, “Our gentle friar also need not know the destination.”

  She turned to him, looking up at the gray eyes. “How can I keep it from them? It seems everything I think is written on my face.”

  Corbett laughed softly. “The baron cannot read, and your friar is blind. You are safe if you do not speak. I will send you for more information tonight.”

  Supper at the next inn was over quickly. Crowds fleeing the city of Naples packed the public house to bursting. The servants were overwhelmed. The travelers had to be satisfied with only some wine and bread and a sharp cheese before retiring to their two rooms. Nadira knew that she could not travel for DiMarco with so much noise and strangers about. Corbett’s frustrations showed in the deep lines around his mouth. He wanted the secrets of the elixirs before they reached the sea. Finally he relented and approached Montrose.

  “We are four to a room. I need Nadira to travel for me and there is no place we can be alone. Consent to her journey and you may hold her.”

  Montrose asked him, “What makes you think I would refuse?”

  Corbett smiled with obvious relief. “Excellent. Send for William, but Alisdair and Garreth must sleep in the other room with Calvin and DiMarco.”

  “Your humor has improved, my lord,” she whispered to Montrose as he cradled her in his arms in their small room. William lit a small candle and Corbett bolted the door and set a bench against it. The noise from the busy dining hall and the constant footfalls on the stairs was barely muted. “You do not resent this evening’s diversion? You would not prefer to be below?” She thought of the barmaids.

  “No. I am resigned to your travels.”

  “And you have no reservations?”

  “I know what I’m doing. They do not,” he answered sensibly.

  She nodded. He was relaxed and at peace. She made herself comfortable against his chest, closed her eyes and thought of Richard. She found him perched on a high stool before an enormous book propped open on a stand. He turned the wide pages lovingly. He looked up, surprised, when she moved toward him.

  “Princess!”

  “My Lord Kemberley,” she curtseyed.

  “Is my father dead?” He did not appear disturbed by this thought.

  “Ah…no…I think not,” she responded, puzzled.

  “You cannot address me as such until the moment of his death,” he laughed, closing the book. “Besides, I will never be Lord Kemberley. My brother will wear that title when my father is cold.”

  “I admit to confusion concerning the proper address of English lords.”

  “I am Richard now. Just Richard. There are no titles in the land of the dead. The dead are equally dead, if you see my meaning.” He got up from his stool and extended a hand. “I am pleased to see you have come back to me.”

  Nadira took his hand. “I have come to ask a favor.” His face fell and Nadira was sorry she had been so direct. “I shall come for a longer visit soon.”

  “Ask me. If it is in me, it will be yours.”

  “This man who travels with us lost his family in a fire.” Nadira sent a tendril to Richard. “I mentioned this before. I wish to find his wife. You said I could not show her to one who still walks upon the earth without a book…but can you show her to me? Here?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You wish to find her shade, as you found me?” He touched the tendril and his eyes lost their focus. “Yes. I see her. But, Princess, it is not as easy as summoning me. She must want to come, and badly. It takes a great deal of effort.”

  “But it can be done?”

  “Of course, but she could not go below and be seen by the living. Like I told you before, only a necromancer can bring that about.”

  “Ask her to come, please.”

  He looked at her for a long while. “I have not the skill. I am no expert here, Princess. I struggle to understand what is expected of me. Sometimes I despair of ever getting it right and moving to the next…lesson.” Nadira was saddened by the look of loss on his eyes. He asked. “How can I summon her? Do you know how?”

  She had not expected this complication. “Indeed I do not. I call for her, but she does not come. I assumed you would know what I am doing wrong.” She looked over his shoulder hoping to see Madam DiMarco, but saw nothing behind him. It was as though they now stood in a thick fog. “When I was here before I could see forever. Why is there only this small place now?”

  He rubbed his face all over with both hands, just like his brother. “I told you that I create this space and you share it because I allow it to be shared. Here.” He appeared to take a deep breath, and then closed his eyes. The fog faded away and the summer fields of Andalusia returned. “You can now see forever, but you really see nothing. It is an illusion, but a very beautiful one.” He looked over the rolling hills and blowing grain with her.

  In a small voice she asked, “Then how shall I call for Madam DiMarco?”

  He shook his head slowly. “As with every new lesson, you need a book.”

  “This is important, Richard. I have failed. I wonder what gave me the confidence to think I could do this thing.”

  He put an arm around her shoulders. “With every lesson you need a book…or a master.” He smiled. “I have been able to materialize only one person. My teacher. I will call him for you, and you may ask him.” He raised the arm above her shoulders and called out, “Professor! Please come. I need you!”

  Nadira blinked, for there had been no movement, no sound or color. One moment she and Richard were alone and in the blink of an eye there were three. An elderly gentleman with kind eyes stood before them, dressed in long academic robes, a conical professor’s cap upon his gray hair. She curtseyed in her confusion, which drew a kind smile from the old man. Richard introduced them. “Professor, my friend Nadira of Barcelona. Princess, my teacher…uhm,” he frowned. “Professor. I do not believe you have ever told me your name, sir.”

  “That is because I do not possess one. You have called me ‘Professor’ since your first moment here when I appeared before you upon your death. You gave me this form and named me ‘Professor’.” He opened his arms and looked down at his body with humor. He turned to Nadira. “And you. I have seen you here before.”

  Nadira inclined her head. “I have only recently learned the way to this place,” she answered demurely.

  “And yet now you would direct the denizens and give them orders.” His smile remained kind, but his eyes took on a harder cast. “It is not for you to call for whom you please.”

  Nadira curtseyed again. “Forgive me, then, sir. I did not mean to offend.”

  “I am not offended, though Madam DiMarco most probably is. She has moved on to other places, other people, another life. She is not in this place. Her shade, however…” He pulled his chin with two fingers. “I can see in your heart what it is you desire. To bring the image of Madam to her husband would be an injustice to him.”

  Nadi
ra was surprised. “I mean to comfort him.”

  “Children are comforted with such lies. He has reached a great age and has accomplished much. It is foolish to take him back to painted cards and wooden balls.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “He has fears…”

  “Oh yes. You do not assuage them by encouraging this fantasy.”

  “He expects it.”

  “Hmm.” The Professor appeared to be deep in thought. Nadira and Richard waited for him. At last he turned to her. “And these elixirs. You don’t need them, you know.”

  She made a face. “It is not I who desires them.”

  “Oh, do not fool yourself. There is a love of adventure behind those brown eyes.” His twinkled at her. “I see you filled with curiosity and the desire to try them each, one by one.”

  “All but one. Senore insists one is a deadly poison. We would know their purposes.”

  “I am not DiMarco’s teacher, nor am I Madam’s. It is neither my place to direct them, nor yours.”

  Nadira realized she must find a convincing argument very quickly. “What harm can come?” She asked.

  “A great deal. You will reinforce his belief that his wife is in some static heaven waiting his death to reunite them. This is erroneous, and will cause him great grief and delay when he does take his leave of this life. His wife’s soul has moved on to a new life in a new body. He will waste time searching for her there. She is somewhere else.”

  “Time?” Nadira turned her head sideways and blinked at him. “There is no time here.”

  The Professor raised both eyebrows. “Excellent. Point and game, clever girl. But you must tell me how this vision will benefit his soul.”

  “He fears for his soul and wants his wife to intercede for him, lest he go to hell.”

  The Professor looked puzzled. “Why does he not confess, be shriven, be at peace? That is the accepted mode in his place and time.”

  “I wish I knew. I am not familiar with the details of his religion. I seem to remember William telling me that DiMarco has committed a mortal sin. Does that mean he cannot rest easy no matter how many times he runs the rosary through his fingers?”

  “Ah. It is easier for God to forgive than for many men to forgive themselves.”

  Nadira thought of Montrose, then put it out of her mind. “He suffers.” She lowered her eyes and waited.

  Richard broke the silence. “Professor. Please explain heaven and hell to the princess. It will help her navigate between them.” He took her hand.

  The Professor raised both his arms over his head and the three of them found themselves suspended in nothingness. All was black. She could see nothing. Nadira could no longer feel Richard’s hand in hers. She put her other hand to her eyes but there was nothing to touch, no hand to move.

  “Be calm,” the Professor’s voice soothed. “We are in the Abyss.”

  “I do not like this.” Richard’s voice was tight.

  “I know. You are not yet ready for this place, my friend, but you asked and I teach. Nadira. Tell me what you feel.”

  “I feel nothing,” she answered honestly. “There is nothing here.”

  “You are wrong. Everything is here. This is the Nexus of Reality. Everything you can imagine can achieve form, but you must think it first, then desire it. This place is the place of all things…and no things. Do you see?”

  Nadira had no face to smile with. She allowed her amusement to reach the professor. A tiny glow of light twinkled before her eyes, the form of her humor. “There is nothing to see,” she said.

  “And yet you have just created a glimmer of happiness. Think of something wonderful and see what appears.”

  Nadira immediately remembered the gardens of her childhood home. Instantly the three of them stood among lush green palms and fragrant gardenias and jasmine before a sparkling pool and fountain. The fresh breeze carried the scent of roses and cinnamon. She took in the scents and the warmth of the sun.

  Richard looked around him. “Heaven!” He raised his arms to the blue sky and the arching palms.

  The professor seemed pleased as well. “Very nice. And hell, Princess? Can you do that equally well?”

  She frowned, “Why should I want to?”

  The professor laughed.

  Richard had begun to wander. He bent over the pool to touch the lotus blossoms.

  In a more serious voice, the professor told her, “Your lesson lies there, Nadira. You find it effortless to create a heaven that others may experience, but you must struggle to create hell.”

  She repeated, “Why create a hell, Professor?”

  “To understand a thing fully, you must be immersed in it. You may read a thousand books, as our dear friend has,” he smiled fondly at Richard who had plucked a blossom from the jasmine vine and was inhaling it, eyes closed in bliss, “and remain as ignorant as he is. You may experience a flash of the Abyss and have the knowledge of ages. You will have to experience hell in order to know it. By knowing it you can defend against the intrusive thoughts of others, and change them. Others will create their own hells and try to immerse you in them. If you share their beliefs, you will be trapped there forever, or at least until you realize where you are. You must be able to remember who you are and what you are doing in order to move in and out without confusion or danger. That is why you must practice with hell, for it is always with us in one form or another.”

  He nodded toward Richard, who now had discovered the tame peacocks that wandered the garden. “You can see how easy it might be to move within another’s world and lose one’s self within it. That is only one of the dangers. Another is that a hell might frighten you so badly you cannot find your way out, or you are driven mad by its terrors and cease to be. You would forget who you are, and all you have learned.”

  Nadira considered this, imagining the hells of her friends and of what happened to Brother Henry.

  “Don’t imagine them too hard, Nadira.” The professor pointed to the sky where dark clouds had begun to cover the sun. “Do you see? You must understand how you create reality with your thoughts. It is crucial.”

  She nodded, clearing the clouds and returning the sky to an azure vault over the garden.

  “Good. It will take practice. Not all of it pleasant. The elixirs are tools for this work. The alchemists have been at it for centuries. Take them if you please, for they will intensify the experience and hurry things along. But beware that some of them are brewed as weapons of the mind. Do not touch those, or allow another to be harmed with them.”

  The Professor touched her arm. “I will tell you one thing more, for I can see you need to learn quickly. You can use what you have been calling your ‘tendrils’ for many things. Search a man’s mind, build a shield to defend your own. You can cast them and reel them in. Practice.” His face became more serious. “But beware that they can be used for good or ill. Take care you know which is which.”

  Nadira felt a hundred questions growing inside her. She thought of the necromancer’s book and how it was to be used, a book the magi use to cleave the Gates of Hell. Why travel to hell? Why disturb the denizens there? She felt the burn of curiosity and the eager excitement of discovery. Her body shivered with the desire to know everything. She understood the curiosity of Pandora and the temptation of Eve. Everything that can be known could be hers, and even those things better left unknown.

  The blue sky beckoned above her, calling for her to fly and to see the beautiful blues and greens of the sea and the white cliffs of the islands. The fresh breeze drew her away from the land and across the water to the leaping dolphins and shimmering schools of silver tuna and mackerel that swam just under the surface of the White Sea. The sun shone brightly on the frescos and columns of the ancient libraries and academies of learning on the shores. Then she heard a piercing scream. Her garden, the glistening waves and the stately buildings disappeared in a blinding light. With a startling crash of thunder she was slammed hard into Montrose’s arms; her eyes flew open in hor
ror.

  The men around her leaped to their feet at the sight of her face, and Montrose tightened his grip on her.

  “What?” Corbett bent over her, alarm on his face. “What did you see?”

  How could she tell them what she saw in the flash of light that appeared the instant before the thunder? How could she describe the images of the lives of all men and women, the sounds of war, the gurgle of pestilence, the sharp stab of famine, the burning scourge of cruelty, the twisting agony of torture, and the crushing fears that permeate the existence of humankind in an infinite wave of misery for all eternity? How could she tell them she had seen a glimpse of hell?

  The men were staring at her intently.

  “I saw,” she whispered, “I saw what Eve saw when she bit into the fruit. I saw the wonders of heaven…and the horrors of hell.” She turned her head toward Corbett. “We will not be able to raise anyone without the necromancer’s grimoire.”

  Chapter Six

  The men rode silently, each caught up in his own thoughts. Nadira swayed side to side in rhythm with Montrose’s horse. She sat behind him, leaning forward against his back, arms around his waist. The road wound up and down and around the spring green of the hills, but always eventually downward toward the sea. Naples was visible miles ahead as a shining scar of closely-packed white houses and buildings that seemed to cling to the hills below Vesuvius to keep from sliding into the harbor. The weather was pleasant enough, there was no rain or wind, but the storm of the approaching French army had tempered their conversation and wound it down to nothing after the sun reached its zenith. The roads were choked with Napoli citizens fleeing the approach of King Charles.

  The traffic was a minor inconvenience at first, but when they were less than a day’s ride from the great city, they found they could no longer easily travel against the tide of people and wagons moving in the opposite direction.

  Corbett had them move off the road for a conference. “I did not anticipate this complication. If there is to be a battle here, our ship may not be in port.”