Reynevan couldn’t restrain himself. “I thought you used the magic of the Older Folk. Your own.”
“I do.”
“But the Fourth Pentagram of Venus is from the canon of human magic.”
“And where do you think people got their magical canons from?” said Malevolt, straightening up. “Thought they invented it?”
“You mean—”
“I mean,” interrupted the beguiler, pouring salt, herbs and powders into the bowl, “we put what’s needed with what’s needed. I also possess the Arcane Knowledge of humans. I’ve studied it.”
“Where? How?”
“In Bologna and Pavia. And how? In the normal way. What did you mean? Ah, I understand. My appearance. It surprises you, does it? Well, I’ll tell you: nothing is difficult if you want it. The key is to think positively.”
“One day,” said Reynevan, sighing, “they’ll even start admitting girls to universities…”
“That’s taking it a little too far,” the beguiler said sourly. “We won’t see girls at varsities, not even if we wait a hundred years. And it’s a shame, frankly speaking. But that’ll do, enough daydreaming. Let’s get down to brass tacks… Dammit… Where’s that flacon of blood… Ah, here it is.”
“Blood, Malevolt? What for? Black magic?”
“For protection. Before we begin the Scheva, we must protect ourselves.”
“From what?”
“What do you think? From danger!”
“What danger?”
“By entering the astral realm and touching the ether,” the beguiler patiently explained as though to a child, “we put ourselves at risk. We lower our guard. We become an easy target for the malocchio, the Evil Eye. One may not enter the astral realm without security. I learned it in Lombardy, from the girls of Stregheria. Let us begin, we’re wasting time. Repeat after me.”
In the east Samael, Gabriel, Vionarai,
In the west Anael, Burchat, Suceratos.
From the north Aiel, Aquiel, Masagariel,
From the south Charsiel, Uriel, Naromiel…
The candle flames pulsated. The red wax spattered.
No one knew what the catacombs beneath the Church of Saint Maciej concealed, not even the oldest and wisest residents of Wrocław. Even the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, to whom the church belonged and who walked the floor every day, didn’t know what was to be found barely a few yards beneath it. To be precise: only two of the crusaders knew the secret. Two of the group of seven Hospitallers served the Wallcreeper and were his informers. Those two knew about the hidden entrance and the magical password that opened it. The two of them—being scholars of the secret arts—also possessed Arcane Knowledge. Their task was to keep the occultum in order and as acolytes to assist the Wallcreeper during vivisections, necromantic experiments and demonic conjurations.
That day, only one of them was assisting the Wallcreeper. The other was sick. Or was malingering in order not to assist.
The crypt was flooded by the deathly light of a dozen candles and the devilish, flickering glow of the coals burning on a huge tripod. The Wallcreeper, in a black hooded robe, stood in front of a lectern overlaid with books, turning the leaves of Abdul Alhazred’s Necronomicon. Beside it lay other, equally well-known and powerful magical grimoires: Ars Notoria, Lemegeton, Arbatel, Picatrix, as well as Honorius of Thebes’ Liber Juratus, a notorious book and so dangerous that few dared to use the spells and formulae it contained.
In the centre of the chamber, a skeleton was lying on a large, flat block of granite resembling a catafalque. It wasn’t actually a skeleton, but the detached bones of a human skeleton arranged in the correct configuration: a skull, shoulder blades, ribs, a pelvis, the bones of the upper arms and thighs, and shinbones. The skeleton was incomplete, lacking many of the small bones of the feet—carpals, metacarpals and phalanges—and several cervical and lumbar vertebrae. It was also lacking its right collarbone. All the bones were black and some were very charred. The Hospitaller assisting the Wallcreeper as an acolyte knew that the remains belonged to a certain Franciscan burned alive five years earlier for heresy and witchcraft. The Hospitaller had personally dug the bones from the ashes, then collected, segregated and arranged them by hand. To find the very smallest, he had sifted the cold charcoal through a sieve.
The Wallcreeper moved away from the lectern and stopped over a scroll of pristine parchment lying unfurled on the marble table. Having pushed up the sleeves of his black robe, he raised his arms. In his right hand, he held a wand made from a yew branch.
“Veritas lux via,” he began calmly, stooped humbly over the parchment, “et vita omnium creaturarum, vivifica me. Yecologos, Matharihon, Secromagnol, Secromehal. Veritas lux via, vivifica me.”
You’d have sworn a wind blew through the crypt. The candle flames flickered and the fire on the tripod suddenly exploded. The shadows on the walls and the vaulted ceiling assumed fantastic shapes. The Wallcreeper straightened up and spread his arms in a sudden movement. “Conjuro et confirmo super vos, Belethol et Corphandonos, et vos Heortahonos et Hacaphagon, in nomine Adonay, Adonay, Adonay, Eie, Eie, Eie, Ya, Ya, qui apparuis monte Sinai, cum glorificatione regis Adonay, Saday, Zebaoth, Anathay, Ya, Ya, Ya, Marinata, Abim, Jeia, per nomen stellae, quae est Mars, et per quae est Saturnus, et per quae est Luciferus, et per nomina omnia praedicta, super vos conjuro, Rubiphaton, Simulaton, Usor, Dilapidator, Dentor, Divorator, Seductor, Seminator, ut pro me labores! ”
Fire shot up in bursts, shadows danced. On the parchment—virginally pure until that moment—suddenly began to appear hieroglyphics, symbols, sigla and signs, at first pale, but quickly becoming darker.
“Helos, Resiphaga, lozihon,” recited the Wallcreeper, following with movements of his wand the figures as they appeared. “Ythetendyn, Thahonos, Micemya. Nelos, Behebos, Belhores. Et diabulus stet a dextris.”
The Hospitaller shuddered. He recognised the gestures and formulae, enough to guess that Master Grellenort was casting a terrible spell on somebody, a spell capable from a distance of attacking the selected individual with weakness, illness, paralysis—death, even. But there wasn’t enough time for dread, or to analyse whom the master had selected as his victim. The Wallcreeper held out his hand in an impatient gesture. The acolyte quickly pulled a white dove from a wooden cage and handed it to him.
The Wallcreeper calmed the fluttering bird with a gentle touch. And wrenched off its head with a sudden movement. Gripping it in his fist, he squeezed it like a lemon, straight onto the occultum, the spurting blood describing complicated patterns on the parchment.
“Alon, Pion, Dhon, Mibizimi! Et diabulus stet a dextris! ”
The Wallcreeper tore the next dove into pieces, holding it by a wing and a leg. And ripped the heads off the next three with his teeth.
“Shaddai El Chai! Et diabulus stet a dextris! ”
It takes time, thought the acolyte, for that spell to reach the place it’s been sent to. But when it does, the person who is the target will be doomed.
Feathers and down whirled around the crypt, burned up in the fire, floating up to the ceiling on warm air. The Wallcreeper spat the feathers from his blood-covered lips and placed the wand on the parchment, wet with blood.