The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,63

mottled and crumbling with mildew, its parchment pages hand-copied, so Baldur claimed, by a scholar in the old city of Venice three centuries ago from documents far older, documents copied in Byzantium from sources more ancient still. This was a usual claim made by occult societies, in Rhion’s world as in this one. Baldur, no novice at dating manuscripts, had affirmed that this copy had indeed originated in the seventeenth century—a designation that puzzled Rhion, for, though records went back over forty centuries in places, this world seemed to count their years in both directions from the middle. The seventeenth century (counting forward) had been a time of intensive occult activity just before the rise of mechanistic industrialism. Through a sentence in a papal letter and a reference in the Dee correspondence, Baldur claimed to have identified the Venetian scholar Lucalli as a possible member of the infernal Shining Crystal group, though no direct mention was made of it either in Lucalli’s diary or in this Praecepta, which, though catalogued in his library in the 1908—counting forward—inventory, might or might not have been his. But from what he had heard of the text, Rhion thought it was a good guess.

“Now men must have resort to the wills of a great congregation of folk, joined together with one accord and stirred up by dancing and the beating of drums and by the act of generation promiscuously performed (all these methods being anciently employed to rouse up the vital flames). More and more the Adept must rely upon the turning of the stars and the taking of the universe at its flow-tide, and upon the use of potions and salves which free the spirit and stir forth the vital flame of life from their flesh. For mark this: there is an energy, afire, in the human flesh and the human soul, from which magic can be woven.”

Lounging in his corner near the window of the dimly curtained library, Poincelles glanced up from his own book and smiled.

“All possess this flame in some measure, but to greater or lesser extent, as fire burns the more or less brightly from oil depending on the degree to which it is pure. Most brightly it burns in the True Adepts, who by means of drugs and potions can call it forth from themselves at will; but lesser men of wisdom still have great measure of this flame. Even the dross of humanity, the human cattle which eat grass and breed and exist only for the purposes of the True Adepts, possess it in some degree, and thus can be used, as the flesh of cattle is used to sustain the life of a true man. This the Indian wizards of the New World knew, when they made their sacrifices; this the devotees of the black cults of Atys and Magna Mater understood, when they performed deeds for which the Emperor Trajan had their names stricken from the records of history. And this knowledge has been handed down unto those who understand.

“And it’s true, it worked,” Baldur added, looking up.

In the filtered afternoon light coming through the library windows the boy looked absolutely awful, his face like putty behind the thick spectacles, his hands trembling where they lay on the stained parchment page. His repeated sniffling informed Rhion also that Baldur had fortified himself with a quick sniff of his favorite poison before leaving his room, where he’d lain in a stupor since concluding his part of last night’s experiment. No fear from this group, Rhion thought with dour irony, settling deeper into the tapestry embrace of a worn wing chair. They’ll dope themselves to death before they can destroy the world.

But it was what they would do in the meantime that had him worried.

“What?” he asked cautiously.

“Don’t you see? Of c-course you have to see!” Baldur almost shouted at him, twitching impatiently in his chair and dragging a damp and crumpled sleeve under his raw nostrils. “Those gypsy b-b-bitches last night, and the Jew... Pau—er—the Captain sent for them specially. The wo-women were fortune-tellers, the brat a psychic of some kind, I forget what. The Captain was wise enough—it was his idea to have anyone with p-power be picked up. ‘Sp-Specially Designated.’ He knew we’d need them.”

“You mean, whether they’d done anything wrong or not?”

Baldur stared at him, flaccid lips agape. “They were Jews,” he pointed out. “And anyway the experiment worked! We were right! Thursday night—at the dark of the moon—we’ll work the rite using