Chapter Sixteen: The Mystery of Wizard Bell

 

Peter Bassington didn’t even notice that it was dark until it became impossible to read the book in front of him. He looked up at the clock on the wall and felt his neck complain. He had been bent over the books for almost five hours, and now his head was swimming with almost maddening thoughts. He glanced back at the text he had just finished.

 

She floated down from the sky, her huge, feathered wings outstretched. They were twelve feet from tip to tip and as white as the clouds, as white as newly fallen snow, as white as faith and hope. The rest of her body was smooth and supple and sublime and beautiful and naked. Her tiny feet came gently to rest in the soil beside the bizarre purple flowers, each of which looked up at her with a large eyeball in the center. Her face was beauty incarnate and her body was bliss. Long blond hair cascaded down her shoulders, impossibly thick, almost to her waist. Her eyes were spaced wide above her prominent cheekbones and small but perfectly formed nose. Her full lips smiled crookedly exposing straight teeth as white as her wings.

It was here, in this endless field of loathsome purple flowers, where she waited for them. And they came. They came to her. They retreated here from the world, when they rubbed the See Spice into their eyes. And here she took care of them; took away all their cares, took away all their fears, took away all their pain. She also took away their love, and their desire, and their sense of self. She left them the empty husks of what they had been and would never more be. They called her angel, and they willingly gave themselves to her, and she feasted on their insides like they were her own personal drinking gourds. But she wanted something more. She wanted to leave the endless nothingness of that place and come to the real world, where she would feast on the marrow of all that is good and pure and true.

 

The passage didn’t mention a name, but Peter knew to whom it was referring. Her name was Pantagria. She was an angel or demon that those addicted to white opthalium saw when they used their drug. He had heard her name uttered once or twice by addicts on the street or in opthalium dens. But most of what he knew came from Senta. Two and a half years earlier, while they were journeying to Birmisia from Brechalon, an addict, one of Pantagria’s minions here in the real world, had thrown white opthalium into Senta’s eyes. This transported her to that other world, where Pantagria had begged her to use her art to bring the angel to the real world. Senta had managed to escape.

The whole story had sounded like a fairy tale and Senta wasn’t above a bit of self-aggrandizement on occasion, so Peter hadn’t been too sure of the authenticity of every detail, but here it seemed to be verified in black and white—in a book written almost two hundred years earlier by a man named Viner. And there were other mentions of Pantagria going back a thousand years. Then there was the note scrawled in the margins of the Viner text “Nom 2:3-4”.

Peter pulled himself to his feet and walked from the dining room, through the parlor, and down the hallway to the library. It was so dark in the room, he had to feel around for the gas light sconce on the wall. Pulling a match from his pocket and striking it, he turned the knob, and the hissing gas burst into bright yellow flame, illuminating one side of the room, and throwing shadows of chairs and tables on the other. The young wizard retrieved a pristine copy of the Holy Scriptures from the bookcase and flipped it open.

“Bother,” he said. There were three books of Nom: The Writings of Nom, The Letter of Nom, and The Children of Nom.”

Looking at The Writings of Nom, chapter 2, verse 3, he found “I have need of you,” so saith the Lord. “I have need that you will sacrifice of yourself.” Not particularly inspiring or helpful. He turned to The Letter of Nom, chapter 2, verse 3. One thing I ask of the Lord only, and I hope with all my heart that he will grant my prayer: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. Finally he turned to The Children of Nom and as he read, he felt ice filling his belly.

 

2. The Lord came unto the feathered one and the Lord said, “From whence comest thou?” And the beast answered the Lord, and said, “You know from whence I come. From going to and fro within my prison among the seeing weeds.”

3. And the Lord said, “And there you must stay lest man should weep and all our works should turn to dust.”

 

Bloody hell. That was the Grand Scriptures too. They were, what? Three thousand years old? It was too big—too much to think about. He turned out the light and felt his way back to the parlor. Then he climbed the stairs and slipped into his bedroom. Peeling off his clothes, he dropped down onto his bed and passed into a fitful sleep.

The next morning, Peter, as usual, found Baxter and Sen at the table having breakfast. The girl had a toast soldier in one hand and her wooden dinosaur in the other. The man was sipping a cup of tea while reading from a small paperback book.

“What are you reading?”

Attack of the Zombie Women,” Baxter replied, turning the book to display a luridly illustrated cover picture, then he pointed at the occasional table against the wall. “I put your books all over there. I left them open to your pages.”

“Thank you. Did you read any of them?”

“No. What would you like for breakfast. Cook has some kippers.”

“All right. Do we have any potatoes?”

“Potatoes yes, tomatoes no.” Baxter turned toward the kitchen and called, “Kippers and fried potatoes for Mr. Bassington!”

“So, you didn’t read any of my books?” asked Peter.

“I said I didn’t. Why? Should I have?”

“Probably,” he muttered, glancing at his three-year-old niece.

“Rassy!” called Baxter. “Take the child up and get her dressed.”

The lizzie nursemaid hurried into the room and scooped up the child.

“I’m not finished with my toast!” shouted the girl.

“I’ve been watching you, young lady!” Baxter called back. “You haven’t taken a bite in ten minutes. Playing with it is not eating. Now go get dressed.”

Sen, carried by the lizzie, exited into the parlor.

Baxter looked at Peter expectantly.

“What do you know about Pantagria?” asked the young wizard.

“About what anybody knows. She’s a shared illusion that drug addicts experience.”

“What if she isn’t an illusion? What if she’s a real thing, a really dangerous thing, a monster that somehow exists on another plane of existence.”

“That’s all too much for me,” said Baxter. “All this magic talk doesn’t make any sense. I’ll stick with something more believable, like attacking zombie women.”

“But you know magic exists,” said Peter. “You’ve seen magic a thousand times. You live in the same house with Senta Bly, the Drache Girl!”

“I didn’t say I didn’t believe it. I just don’t understand it. If you say this Pantagria is alive in some fairy tale world, I say fine, let her stay there. It’s got nothing to do with me.”

“What if she didn’t stay there? What if she found a way to come to our world?”

“Then there would be one more attractive woman in the world,” said Baxter. “Those nutters on spice are always going on about how beautiful she is. Can’t see that it’s really a problem.”

“But she’s not a woman, don’t you see? She’s a demon that corrupts people with that poison. If she came to our world, she might have powers that we can’t even imagine.”

Baxter took a sip of his tea. “Look, I see you’re upset about this. Put it in terms I can understand. What’s got you so worked up?”

“Pantagria is a monster, and she’s been trying for a long time, maybe thousands of years to get to our world.” Baxter started to say something, but Peter raised his hand. “I know what you’ll say—thousands of years and she’s still not out. But something has changed. I’ve contacted some people I know in Mallontah, and the addicts there are acting strange. And here in Birmisia, they’ve stopped using the drug altogether. Then there’s Wizard Bell. You know I’ve been having him watched, and he is definitely up to something.”

“You think that Bell’s trying to free her? Bring her here?”

“I do. He’s spent a lot of time around the Result Mechanism. He had almost free access to it in the two years my sister squabbled with the governor over it. He may have used it to craft a spell powerful enough to bring Pantagria here.”

“Maybe he doesn’t even need the machine,” suggested Baxter. “Didn’t I hear Senta say that the building it was in was soaked in magic?”

“Yes.”

“Could he cast a spell there to make it more potent?”

“Maybe,” said Peter with a frown. “I’m having both the building and Bell watched.”

“Then I suppose you’re doing all you can do for the moment,” said Baxter, getting to his feet. “Keep up the good work and let Senta figure it out when she gets back.”

The older man left the room, just as the lizzie was bringing out Peter’s breakfast. The young wizard was so lost in thought as he ate that he almost choked on a fish bone. Just as he was finishing, Cheery entered and stopped next to him.

“Young lady for you,” said the lizzie.

Peter got up and followed the reptilian into the parlor to find Abigail dressed in a bright white day dress with pink bows.

“How appropriate,” he said, stepping close to her and kissing her on the cheek.

“What is that?” wondered Abby.

“Here you are with bows on, and I was just thinking that you were as pretty as a present.”

“Flatterer!”

“Not a bit, though I confess I’m not of sound mind.”

“No?” she asked.

“No, I’m so in love I’ve gone addlepated.”

“Perhaps you were addlepated before,” she offered. “I suppose I should put in as your legal guardian as well as your wife.”

“A wise plan,” he said. “Let’s sit and relax and I’ll tell you again and again how beautiful you are.”

He sat down on the loveseat and pulled her down next to him.

She giggled. “That is my favorite pastime.”

At that moment, Cheery slipped a small note into the wizard’s hand. It contained only three words: Bell at home.

“Fine, fine,” said Peter, crumpling up the paper and turning all his attention to his fiancé.

As he spent the next two hours talking with Abigail, Peter wondered over and over again at his good fortune. Never in his life had he found someone with whom he could simply talk, without a goal and without artifice. It felt wonderful.

“So, did you hire a rickshaw?” he asked as the conversation finally started to wane.

“As a matter of fact, I drove.”

“What?” he said, sitting up a bit straighter.

“That’s right. I drove over in Kaspar’s car.”

“Your brother-in-law let you use his car?”

“Well, actually it was Gabby. Kaspar is at sea. He’s going to be gone for the next two months. He’s making a run to Novo Brabant.”

“That must be tough on your sister.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine,” said Abby, rolling her eyes. “She has plenty to keep her busy. Mind you, she should get started on a family. Then she wouldn’t have time to miss him. Would you like to go for a drive?”

“Certainly.”

They put on their coats and stepped outside to find Kaspar Drake’s green Finson Model B, steaming away. Abby climbed into the driver’s seat while Peter stepped behind and added coal the firebox. Then he walked around and hoisted himself into the passenger seat.

“You don’t want to drive, do you?” asked Abigail.

“I’m a thoroughly modern man,” he said, looking at the confusing array of controls. “I’m not ashamed to be driven around by a lady.”

Abby beamed and threw it into gear, causing the vehicle to lurch forward. They drove from one end of town to the other, passing through Zaerietown and driving by the new houses under construction by BB&C. Then they turned south and circled the new militia base, which had replaced the old base on the peninsula, now used as temporary housing for indigent new arrivals. Finally they drove west and turned north on Terrence Dechantagne Boulevard.

“I’m feeling a bit peckish,” said Abigail.

“It’s actually past lunch,” replied Peter, pulling out his watch. “It’s early for tea, but what do we care? Let’s stop and eat somewhere.”

“All right. But we’re not eating anyplace expensive. You’re going to be a family man, so you need to start saving your money.”

“Already cracking the whip,” he said, smiling.

Abby pulled up to the curb.

“We’ll eat here at the beanery,” she said.

There were four eating establishments in Port Dechantagne called beaneries. This one was the original. A single square building served as kitchen, diners eating out front on long wooden tables beneath a large colorful awning. Peter hurried around to help his fiancé down and they entered the establishment, finding plenty of seats. A lizzie approached and set down two cups of steaming tea.

“Luncheon for two,” said Peter.

With a quick nod, the reptilian headed back toward the rear of the restaurant.

“I don’t suppose a rich and powerful wizard such as yourself patronizes as common an establishment as this,” she said.

“As a matter of fact, I ate here when I first visited Port Dechantagne as a boy.”

“I didn’t know you had been here before.”

“Yes, for a few weeks. I was only twelve at the time.”

“I wish I had known you then. I’ll bet you were a cute boy.”

“The less said about that, the better,” he said.

The lizzie waiter returned and wordlessly set out two plates, each was filled with a mound of chips, some sliced radishes, and a bulging pastry shell.

“Oi, it’s a pasty,” said Peter. “I haven’t had one since I left Brech.”

“Mum always calls them tiddy oggins,” said Abigail.

The young wizard took his knife and cut the pasty across the middle allowing a small cloud of steam to escape. The pastry shell was filled with onions and turnips and meat—no doubt some kind of dinosaur.

“You can make them then?”

“Oh sure,” she said.

“I’m finding myself more and more pleased with the idea of marriage.” He took a bite. “I’m hoping yours are better than this.”

She took a bite and looked thoughtful.

“It’s not a bad bit of baking, mind, but I never cared for velociraptor.”

“Well, the chips are good anyway.” He rested his chin on his hand. “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”

“After I drop you home, I’m off to a dress fitting.” Abby smiled and batted her eyelashes. “It’s for a very important dress.”

“I can’t wait to see it.”

“I’m very much afraid you’ll have to.” She looked up as a bank of clouds rolled in, obscuring the sun. “Tell me how you see us in a year or two, no, say five years from now.”

“I see us in a lovely house with a smart well-cultivated garden, a new steam carriage in the motor shed, and you and I sitting, watching our children play. There will be three of them: two boys and a little girl, who’ll have me wrapped around her finger, like Sen has Baxter, only more so, since she’ll be mine.”

Abby looked at him with wide eyes.

“You didn’t know?”

“I heard it from Gabby, but it seems so strange that a man could so dote on a child that wasn’t his. I guess I just didn’t believe it.”

“How about more tea?” Peter asked an approaching lizzie, but he realized it wasn’t a waiter when the creature shoved a small slip of paper into his hand.

“I wonder how they found me?” He looked at the four words written on the paper at first struggling to understand them: Bell at building power. For half a second, he thought it might mean that the wizard was at the gas company or the coal depot, but he quickly disposed of that idea. The building of power could only be one place. It was the warehouse in which the Result Mechanism had been stored.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go,” he said, getting up.

“Is it your work for Senta?”

He nodded.

“Then be careful.”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said, dropping several banknotes on the table. “You just be careful driving home. It might rain.”

She blew him a kiss and he jogged out of the dining establishment and down to the trolley stop just in time to step aboard the vehicle as it started into motion. The conductor gave him a surly look, but Peter just smiled and dropped a pfennig in the box.

The trolley made its way north until it turned and passed through Town Square. Peter could have transferred to another trolley for the trip out onto the peninsula, but he was already chafing from the relatively slow speed. When the triceratops that was pulling the car came to a stop, to feast on its allotment of tasty greens, he hopped off and jogged through the gate in the emergency wall that separated the oldest part of Port Dechantagne, the peninsula, from the rest of the city. He reached the large machine shed that had for years held the great steam-powered computer, pausing beneath a tree just outside to catch his breath. He looked around, seeing neither Bell nor the lizzies hired to watch him, nor anyone else.

Once he had control of his breathing, the young wizard crept toward the building’s door. Just as he reached it, the first icy drizzles of rain began to fall on him. It made a peculiar snare drum sound on the sheet metal of the slanted roof. With exaggerated caution, he opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind him. The large building was mostly empty now that the great machine had been removed. A row of windows along the edge of the roof provided the only illumination, which flickered from dark to darker as the rate of the rain increased. Here and there, pipes poked up, skeleton-like, from the floor. Empty coal bins sat along the north wall, and bits of coal were scattered all across the floor. Along the far wall was a set of workbenches, and a loud grunt drew Peter’s attention immediately to it. A figure was hunched over the bench, something protruding from its back. As the young wizard crept across the room, the figure reached over its shoulder and yanked whatever it was on its back, pulling it off. Peter moved quietly closer. When he was about halfway across the room, he stopped.

“What are you doing here, Bell?”

A flash of lighting illuminated the room for a fraction of a second, just long enough for Peter to make out a naked woman before him.

“I’m not Bell. Let’s put some light on things, shall we?” said the woman. “Uuthanum.”

A lantern on the workbench came to life, bathing her in a warm yellow glow. Her skin, which had looked blue grey beneath the harshness of the lightning, was warm and tan. But it was smeared with blood. On the workbench beside her was a large wing, covered with once-white and now blood-stained feathers. Another wing lay at her feet. And protruding from her back were jagged bones where those feathered wings had once connected.

“Kafira, you’ve ripped off your own wings!”

“Oh, Kafira has nothing to do with me,” she said.

“Pantagria.” The name fell from Peter’s mouth as a whisper.

“You know me. Strange how I don’t know you.”

“You can do magic?”

“You get in the heads of a few thousand wizards and you’re bound to learn a thing or two. I’m afraid that’s the extent of my power though… at least of that sort. Kill him.”

Peter saw from the corner of his eye, Wizard Bell step out of the shadows, raise his arm and begin an incantation.

“Uuthanum uluchaiia uluthiuth!”

Prestus Uuthanum,” said Peter quickly, throwing up a shield before Bell’s fireball could engulf him. Even before the fire faded, he launched his own attack. “Uuthanum rechthinov uluchaiia!” A bolt of lighting shot from his fingers and hit the police wizard, throwing him across the room. He landed in a heap, unconscious.

“Now, to deal with you, monster,” said Peter, turning back to Pantagria.

Suddenly there was a loud report and the young wizard felt himself jerked back. A burning sensation filled his lungs. Reaching down, he found his waistcoat slick with blood. He staggered and collapsed on the cement floor. Then he saw a tall, thin boy of about seventeen, with a large revolver in his hand. He had seen the boy before.

“I know you.”

“We’ve met.” The boy took three steps to stand over him. “Philo Mostow.”

Peter wanted to climb back to his feet, but his body wouldn’t follow his commands. He couldn’t even lift up his arms. He could barely move his hand enough to draw out a magic sigil on the floor beside him. Pantagria knelt at his side. He wondered at her lack of concern over her own nakedness.

“Don’t worry,” she said, pressing her hand down over his mouth and nose. “It will all be over soon.”

Peter struggled, but couldn’t stop her, as she smothered away his last breath.

 

* * * * *

 

Senta rode along on the back of the great beast, the columns of her army moving along in front and behind, and on either side of her. The fact that the great beast was as immaterial as the army didn’t bother her at all. Pulling out an enormous book, she placed the palm of her hand against the cover.

“I know I’ve read it in here before. There’s something about subduing a dragon. Uuthanum.”

She opened the book and read.

 

Early in the seventh century in central Sumir, an unholy order known as the Sisterhood of Pain dominated the Borazonians. They turned their backs on the Kristos and worshipped the bloody dragon Voindrazius. The order consisted of two parts: the white sisters, a group of female warriors who cut out their own tongues; and the dark sisters, magic wielders who gouged out their own eyes, but gained supernatural perception, in addition to the powerful spells, from their ungodly lord.

 

“I didn’t ask for this!” Senta snarled, slamming the book shut. “Who cares what a bunch a lunatics did a thousand years ago? One more time: subduing a dragon. Uuthanum.” She opened the book once again and read.

 

The ancient people called the Dricondans, some time before the Olgon conquered them, developed a method of rendering the wyrm compliant. It was long believed that this method had been lost to time, but it was resurrected in the late 1880s by the Great Wizard Bassington, who used it to hunt down the remaining dragons and end their scourge forever.

 

“Oh, well done, Dad,” thought Senta.

 

The precise method is known only to a few, but it includes attacking the dragons with numerous despoliations of their natural magic, thereby bypassing their defenses.

 

“Kafira damn it!” shouted Senta, dropping the book and grasping her head as an intense pain suddenly shot through it. “What the hell?”

As suddenly as the pain appeared, it was pushed to the back of her mind as she heard heavy wing beats overhead. Bessemer, the steel dragon, dropped to a landing just in front of her. The great beast she was riding, of necessity, came to a sudden stop.

“Well, it’s about time!” she said.

“This is quite a display,” he said, waving a hand toward the magical army. “Who are you trying to impress?”

“I’m not trying to impress anyone. Some strange lizzies from Xiatooq kidnapped Zoey, from your home I might add, and I’m going to get her back. Now I need you to fly ahead and find her.”

“I’m sorry I can’t. You’ll have to take care of it.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” Senta climbed to her feet and stood with her fists on her hips.

“There’s trouble in the north. My people need me.”

“Your people? Your people? I’m your people, you twonk!”

“I’ve really got to go,” said the dragon. “I’m sure you can handle it.”

Then he shot up into the sky and flew to the north so quickly that he was gone from sight before Senta could utter another word.