A STRANGE SONG entered Zacharias’s dreams that night.
He had harboured some doubts regarding the propriety of Prunella’s remaining at his residence, since Mak Genggang had flown. But there seemed nothing for it, for Lady Wythe was not due to return till the morrow.
“I shall certainly present her to you tomorrow, however,” he said to Prunella. “Until then, the discretion of my servants may certainly be relied upon.”
The Sorcerer Royal’s servants had formerly been bound by a geas against disclosure of any detail of his household affairs, breach of which was visited by the most terrible revenge. That tyrannical practise had been discontinued by Sir Stephen, but the strict code of secrecy continued. The housekeeper still insisted on sending a footman to collect the household’s meat from the butcher under a disguise, so that no one might know whether the Sorcerer Royal had had a boiled fowl or roast beef for his dinner.
Zacharias had thought Prunella might protest, recalling her encounter with outraged propriety in Fobdown Purlieu, but in fact she made no complaint. She seemed distracted, and Zacharias had only just embarked upon an explanation of the mechanism of the geas—a strikingly innovative formula for its time—when Prunella said she was tired. She thought she would retire.
Zacharias suffered no recurrence of his complaint that evening, and he slept remarkably well considering the stresses of the day. He roused reluctantly as the song became harder to ignore. There was something in it that compelled him to consciousness. The music held within it an exhilarating promise; it flooded his being with a sense of—
Magic.
Zacharias sat bolt upright in his bed. The song was a spell. Magic was being done under his roof, and no small magic either. His first thought was that he must be under attack again. His second, when this proved not to be the case, was that Prunella must be in danger.
The scent of magic grew stronger as he hurried to the bedchamber where she had been lodged, at a decorous distance from his. With the morning’s sortie still vivid in his recollection, he scarcely hesitated at her door, though Zacharias was not generally given to entering the bedchambers of young ladies.
Bursting into the room, he found Prunella crouched on the floor, one hand pressed against her breast. The song seemed to come from her, though her mouth was shut, and she gazed down with an air of absorption. Within a small circle of candlelight lay the object of her gaze: three blue stones lying upon a black cloth.
A layperson might have wondered at Prunella’s fascination with a few pebbles. Zacharias saw the stones with a sorcerer’s eyes, and knew them for what they were. Familiars’ eggs—vessels containing the spirits of magical creatures who, weary of their lives in Fairyland, had volunteered for service in the mortal world, and been locked within stone, to be reborn in the earthly realm.
One egg would have been wealth beyond a magician’s wildest dreams. Three eggs were more than Christendom had seen at one time for a hundred years.
This was a shock greater than any other, in a week of surprises.
“Those are familiars’ eggs,” he said.
Prunella was so intent that she did not even look up.
“And they are just about to hatch,” she said.
• • •
PRUNELLA had confided in Mak Genggang regarding her treasures the night before, though she had had to overcome a lingering hesitation to do it. To possess such a treasure was very tiresome, reflected Prunella, for it made one distrust everyone—and she could not rid herself of the recollection of Mrs. Daubeney’s faithlessness.
But Mak Genggang was a foreigner, and would soon return to her own country; she had helped unlock Prunella’s singing orb, and asked for nothing in return; and there was no one else who could give Prunella the counsel she needed. She would give Mak Genggang an egg for her services, and for her discretion: that should be reward enough, if all Prunella had heard of the value of familiars’ eggs was true.
In the event, the reward proved unnecessary.
“So you have inherited spirits from your father!” exclaimed Mak Genggang when all was explained. “Poor child! That is unfortunate. However, all is not lost. They are locked within these stones, you say? We must hope none of them have secreted themselves within your person: spirits are wicked, ingenious creatures and always select just the parts where they may best torment you. How far are we from the sea? I should fling them upon the waves if I were you, and hope that was the last I saw of them.”
“But I do not want to throw them away,” protested Prunella. “I want to hatch them and make use of them. That is what English thaumaturges do, you know, when they have the good luck to come upon a familiar’s egg, and they are much admired for it.”
“So I have heard, but you ought not to pattern yourself after such reprobates,” said Mak Genggang, frowning. “Do not you know it is a sin so to employ djinns and spirits? We ought only to depend upon the graciousness of God, in magic as in life.”
Prunella was alarmed. She could all too easily envision being compelled by Mak Genggang to dispose of her familiars’ eggs for her own moral and spiritual good.
“But surely God created the spirits and djinns,” suggested Prunella, “and it is no more wicked to use their services than it is to ride horses or eat meat. And you know, dear Mak Genggang, we cannot trust to a steady supply of magic, as you do in your country.”
“Very right too. It is a just punishment for your officious interference in other people’s affairs.”
“But in consequence we are restrained from doing a great deal of good for want of magic,” argued Prunella. “I may not be able to do all I desire to rescue you, for instance.”
This point could not but hold some weight with Mak Genggang, imprisoned as she was by the Society. Despite her pious objection it transpired that she was not unfamiliar with the intricacies of such sacrilegious dependence upon spirits, for after further argument she declared:
“If you insist, it is better that I teach you than that you should blunder along and be devoured for your pains. The employment of familiars is all very well for infidels, I suppose, and you are a godless creature enough, Prunella.”
Prunella acceded to this description of herself cheerfully: “I had no one to teach me better, you see.”
“So you have found someone to teach you worse!” said Mak Genggang. “Well, you are a pretty, insinuating child, and you will come to a bad end, no doubt.”
But she spoke with grudging approval. Mak Genggang might decry Prunella’s ways all she liked, but the same disregard of order and authority which Prunella possessed animated Mak Genggang’s own heart. Even if she thought the appearance of reproof due to her age and status, she rather relished a measure of lawlessness.
“I warned Abdullah in just the same way when he came to me with his bajang. He did not listen, of course, and what was the consequence? He vanished, never to be seen again, and his wife was left to provide for seven children!” said Mak Genggang. “Salima remarried soon enough, and I expect she likes her new husband better, since he does not beat her. But it was a bad lookout for Abdullah. At least you are better equipped to manage your spirits than any man could be.”
“Am I?” said Prunella, pleased. “But why is that?”
“Why, all the greatest magic comes down to blood,” said Mak Genggang. “And who knows blood better than a woman?”
• • •
WHAT Mak Genggang told Prunella had solidified her resolve to wake the familiars. She could not afford to wait, and let Zacharias continue another month exposed to attack by every fireplace and puddle he encountered. Such constant disruption could only interfere with her plans—and what would become of her if one of those attacks should succeed?
But Prunella found she did not like to contemplate the possibility of Zacharias’s being injured, or worse. He could take care of himself, of course; he was Sorcerer Royal, after all. But it was clear she needed magic. London was too dangerous to do without. With such an unassailable ground for tasting the intoxicating power of the treasures again, Prunella saw no reason to put off her trial.
Emboldened by the consciousness of doing not only what was right, but what was necessary, she met Zacharias’s shocked gaze with composure.
“I am sorry to have woken you,” she said. “There is no need for concern, however. Everything is proceeding just as it ought.”
“Proceeding just as it ought—!” cried Zacharias. “Did not that school teach you the dangers of hatching a familiar from the egg?”
It was possible to acquire a familiar by different means: one could inherit a familiar upon the death of its previous master; one could persuade an inhabitant of Fairyland to settle in the mortal world; or one could seek to command the loyalty of a familiar from the egg.
The last method was the most perilous. Familiars hatched from the egg with the intellects of an infant, and no recollection of their past selves. They must be hatched with great care, in the presence of warding spells and other measures of restraint, as might be required by the moods of the familiar once it was hatched.
If the familiar could not be tamed, it must be killed. Zacharias remembered stories of familiars that, in hatching, had left towns and villages in ashes, devastated lands, and killed the magicians that sought to restrain them.
One could not predict what would emerge from a familiar’s egg. It might be anything. It might be angry.
The three eggs were vibrating, their surface covered with fine branching lines, and a tiny wet face emerged from a gap in the eggshell. The sight gave Zacharias the impetus to grasp Prunella’s arm, pulling her away from the eggs.
“Go,” he said urgently. “Wake the servants, and get out of the building. I will contain them.” He had no notion how he would do it, but at least he could try to limit the damage, even if he were destroyed in the attempt.
Prunella was not at all grateful for this display of nobility, however.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” she said crossly. “Why do not you go, and take the servants with you?” She wrested herself from Zacharias’s grasp, and went to kneel by the eggs. “There is nothing to be alarmed about, only I wish you would go back to bed, and not trouble yourself about my business. I cannot deal with the treasures in your presence. It would be very improper!”
The familiar farthest advanced in its hatching crawled out from among the shards of its egg. It was a tiny, naked homunculus, hairless and sexless, with pallid skin and glowing eyes. Zacharias had never before seen an immature fairy in the flesh, but it corresponded exactly to the drawings he had studied. The strange, inhuman face screwed up; the mouth opened and let loose the protesting wail of an infant. Prunella caught the creature up in her hands.
“Please leave the room,” she cried. “I do not at all wish to do what you will compel me to!”
Zacharias started forward to help. He was recalling to his memory everything he had ever learnt about fairies, and his attention was so fixed upon the elvet that Prunella’s hex took him unawares. It was a simple cantrip for confusion—naughty girls at the school had used it to deceive the mistresses on their nightly rounds of the dormitories—but it hit Zacharias full in the face.
He tripped over a chair and fell on the floor, noting as he went the clever design of the spell. It was devised to achieve not only a confusion of the limbs, but a bewilderment of the senses, and his were tangled quite successfully. His vision went dark. The elvet’s wail was suddenly quieted. He heard the tread of tiny feet upon the carpet, an “Oh!” from Prunella—and then he could see again.
Prunella rose, cradling the elvet, her face flushed, and her dress in disarray. Eggshells lay scattered upon the floor. The feverish light of magic, which had so distorted the appearance of the room, faded away.
The two other infant familiars stretched and yawned. One was a garuda, or Malay simurgh, with the black-curled head of a baby and the body of a chick, its feathers wet and plastered to its body. The other was a wobbly-legged colt with a broad leonine face and tiny antler buds—an Oriental unicorn, of the kind called ch’i-lin by the Chinese and kirin by the Japanese.
The elvet was crooning in a soft, loving voice to Prunella, and the others reached for her. They seemed content, well fed—but a familiar could only be tamed at birth by the liberal application of fresh blood, the blood of the magician who wished to be its master. It was this that made taming familiars from the egg such a chancy venture, for the sorcerer was rendered vulnerable at the time when he most needed his full strength.
“You are wounded?” said Zacharias. Prunella must be hurt, though she looked unharmed; there could be no other explanation. “I will go for a physician—no, that will not do—we must make shift to tend you here. Permit me to examine the injury.”
Prunella had gone a brilliant scarlet.
“There is no injury,” she said pettishly. “I beg you will not make a fuss over nothing. I have settled it all.”
“If it would not be proper for me to examine it, the housekeeper could assist, I am sure,” said Zacharias anxiously. “Pray do not allow reserve to expose you to any risk.”
“Mr. Wythe,” said Prunella, with indescribable hauteur, “I beg you will not take offence when I say that a gentleman would not persist in this line of questioning!”
Her face was averted, but her cheek was still flushed with high colour. Little though Zacharias had had to do with women, Sir Stephen—believing there was no area of knowledge that should be withheld from an unnatural philosopher—had taken care to acquaint him thoroughly with the workings of the mortal frame, male and female. It became evident to him what the source of Prunella’s mastery of the familiars must be.
“Oh,” Zacharias said, stricken with embarrassment.
Prunella did not dignify this with a reply, but busied herself with her new familiars. The elvet still cradled in her arms, she drew a shawl over the chick, and knelt by the unicorn, cooing, “What a sweet creature you are! And will you grow into a great horse, truly?”
It was a charming scene. It was also unprecedented in the history of Britain. In one fell stroke Prunella had become the most powerful sorcerer who had ever lived.