American Craftsmen (40 page)

“It’s Michael, right? Nah, Mike sounds better. About Left-Hand power, I think it’s easier for me, living with the cautionary tales. But yes, I know better than most that every family can have a Left Hand.”

“There’s another thing,” said Endicott. “I’ve been too narrow with God.”

“OK, I’ll bite. Narrow? You?”

“Funny. What I mean is, I believe that all this power we use, whether for good or ill, ultimately comes from God. So I can’t draw easy distinctions among its practitioners.”

“But you know what I’ll say, right?” I asked.

“Yep. You’ll say it’s all nature. That we’re the ones who make it good or evil.”

“Yep. But that also means that I can’t draw easy distinctions among practitioners either.”

Endicott took another, longer sip of his beer. “I’ll just say it once. You too are part of God’s plan.”

“This was Sphinx’s plan,” I said, “her counterplan to Chimera’s schemes. And Sphinx is dead.”

“To Sphinx,” said Endicott.

“To Sphinx,” I said. I took a long pull at my cold beer and shook my head. “Shit, you’re too good. I give up. It doesn’t take farsight to see why you’re here. You want a reason we’re going to permanently cease hostilities, and hell, maybe despite all this history we are. You want a reason besides the fact that we’re outstanding soldiers and killers, that Hutch was our mom and pop, and that you know how to drink a beer. But you know what that real reason is. It ain’t ever going to be theological. It’s this country. It makes us all family in the end. But we, the magi, feel that tie before everyone else. Because we’re the wise guys. So we’ll be OK. OK?”

“OK.”

*   *   *

The two comrades finished their beers. Outside, the storm had passed. House sighed and rested in its new foundations, and sang Scherie to a dreamless sleep. From New England to Langley and sea to shining sea, everyone with eyes to see and ears to hear gave the same report: all quiet on the astral plane of America.

EPILOGUE

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

—H. P. Lovecraft

Across the shining sea, on a sold-out flight to Kiev, a single seat appeared to be unoccupied, yet no one attempted to sit there. The flight attendants did their counts, and the stealthy seat slid into and out of them—whichever caused the least trouble.

The man hiding in the seat typed at his laptop. A USB-compatible cable connected the laptop to the carry-on at his feet.

The cable ran within the carry-on to what looked like the main component of a desktop machine. Looks weren’t completely deceiving—the device was in part a computer. But the device also contained a matrix of cerebral stem cells kept alive by Left-Hand craft.
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

On the screen of the laptop appeared the following exchange:

Y
OU DO
OK
, PARDNER?
B
LINK LIGHT TWICE YES, ONCE NO.

I
AM FEELING MORE TALKATIVE THAN THAT.
S
O THIS IS FLYING?
A
LL THIS MAGIC, AND
I
’VE NEVER FLOWN BEFORE.
M
Y ARRANGEMENTS ARE COMPLETE?

W
E HAVE BODY FOR YOU.

A
ND THE OTHER MATTER?

Y
ES, A FRIEND.
T
ALL, THIN, OBEDIENT.
A
ND ONE FOR AFTER THAT.

A
ND ALL
I
HAVE TO DO IS RESIST THE CRAFT MIGHT OF
R
USSIA,
NATO
,
E
ASTERN
E
UROPE, AND THE OCCASIONAL ROGUE
T
URK?

H
A.
H
A.
Y
EP, THAT’S ALL.

Excellent. The Slav was happy, and Roderick wouldn’t argue with him. His mission had been a success. His orders had been to obtain “a Morton” and he was returning with
the
Morton—the “head” Morton, if you will. Roderick had needed two things: a place to go, and a break in his leash. Now that he had those, he would keep his word, because it was so easy to keep. He could do all Roman asked, and more, so much more. More than his new employers wanted, enough to make his former country regret their treatment of him. Soon, he would have to deal with the Rezvani woman; despite all his long-laid plans, she had nearly killed him instead of freeing him. No witch with that kind of power against him could be suffered to live. As for the Endicotts and the so-called Right-Hand Mortons, he would live to see the end of their Families. He took the long view.

He would live. For the first time in decades, Roderick was truly happy to be alive.

APPENDIX

THE STORY OF THE MORTON FAMILY

Part I. Thomas Morton and John Endicott

In May 1624, Thomas Morton stood on a hill in the land of the Massachuset Indians and saw endless forests and animals and possibilities. The day was perfect. He was no longer a young man, but this place made him feel young. The land had a big horizon, vertiginous to any mind shaped in small walled fields. It could drive a sufficient imagination insane.

He took a swig of rum. Thomas always prided himself on his imagination.

One hundred yards down the slope, the trees stirred and parted, almost of their own will. A tall native emerged, not like the warriors and traders Thomas had seen. He wore a patchwork cloak of the fur from black wolves and lesser animals and the cloth stripped from French sailors and given by English Separatists.

Thomas approached the native. His skin was oddly marked: a coiled serpent threatened from one arm, an eagle peered from the other, long bars and stars decorated both limbs, a truncated pyramid filled the cheek below his right eye. These symbols carried a two-edged message:
I’m impressive, but you had better stay away
. The native stared at Thomas, then around him, as if Thomas were surrounded by hidden allies. Thomas looked about—no, he was quite alone. He surveyed the woods. The native was alone too.

Thomas signed with his liquor and firelock and threw out some words: “rum, guns, trade.” The native drew a dagger and waved it toward Morton in a casual threat. “Welcome, Englishman. Shall we dance?”

“Ah,” said Thomas, “it’s a fight you want, savage priest.” He put down his gun and drew his own dagger—the native was too magnificent to shoot. “We shall see whose devil is bigger, mine or thine.”

With a wild yell, Thomas ran the rest of the way down the slope at his opponent. When he fought a man fairly, it helped to imagine and express certain things. He said, “
Knife break
,” as he brought his blade against his opponent’s. The native’s blade shattered on impact, but so did his own steel. Odd, but Thomas was comfortable with his fists. He gripped the remaining hilt in his hand to help his punches. “
Break arm, break leg,
” but the native seemed to flow away from his blows. Thomas kept punching until he was panting for breath. Then he threw the hilt at the native. “Fight me, or the devil take you!” The hilt bounced off the man’s chest.

“Ouch. Brother, please, that’s enough!”

Thomas regained his wind. “You speak English well.”

“Not really. It’s complicated.” The man’s mouth moved differently than the sounds Thomas was hearing. Perhaps his devil was much bigger than Thomas’s.

“Why did you want to fight?” asked Thomas, wiping his hands against the sides of his coat.

“You looked, um, interesting. I didn’t recognize you because you’re a new
powah,
like a chick or child.”

“Powwow?” asked Thomas. It was the one word that he didn’t recognize.

“You have no tongue for it.” The native pointed at his chest. “
Powah
.” He pointed to Thomas. “
Powah
. We are the same. Come. I’ll show you.”

The man, called Guardian, took Thomas to his village. Much of what they did seemed natural enough, the sort of things schoolboys did to show friendship—they shared food, mixed blood, exchanged gifts. But they didn’t discuss trade next. Instead, Guardian told him about the craft and showed him some of its workings. He explained that fledgling
powahs,
like many vulnerable things in nature, have protective camouflage, and that was why he hadn’t recognized Thomas immediately.

So I’m a witch,
thought Thomas.
The Puritans won’t be much pleased, or surprised.

The next day, Guardian showed Thomas a clearing in the backwoods. A small creek with a shallow embankment blocked their way; they’d have to get wet to cross. Guardian lined Thomas up on the embankment and said, “Close your eyes, and try to cross.”

“Whatever you say, brother.” There were worse initiations.

Guardian seemed worried. He needn’t have bothered. Thomas walked steadily ahead, not feeling any descent or creek water.

“Open your eyes,” said Guardian.

Thomas turned and saw that they had crossed on the now-visible trunk of an enormous tree. Animals were also now visible, beasts that Thomas had never seen before, including one he recognized as an elephant, but covered with hair.

“This is the place of lost things,” said Guardian.

Thomas thought the animals looked a little crowded. “It’s not very large.”

Guardian sighed. “It will grow.” He stretched his arms wide. “When your people turn against you, this place will protect you. Will you protect it?”

A stillness fell over the Sanctuary. In the hush, Thomas felt the right words. “I swear it, for me, for my children, and for all my descendants until the land is no more.”

*   *   *

On May 1, 1628, John Endicott stood quietly in the woods outside Thomas Morton’s settlement at Merry Mount. His beard hung grizzled and unimpressive on his face, but the face itself was as iron as his headpiece and breastplate, and no one in the Salem settlement dared challenge his authority.

His men were fanned out behind him, waiting for his orders. At first the men of Salem had questioned this attack on other countrymen, but John had prayed for the power of command, and as always God had answered him. “These are no longer fellow Englishmen,” he had argued. “Thomas Morton has come here to preach iniquity, and has led his followers into the arms of heathens and demons. But now shall it be seen that the Lord has sanctified this wilderness for his chosen people. Woe unto them that would defile it!”

From Merry Mount floated the seductive sounds of music, singing, and dancing. John could just see the top of the flower-covered Maypole and hear the words of the song’s chorus:

Drinke and be merry, merry, merry boyes,

Let all your delight be in Venus’s joyes.

He thought of Morton at the head of the dance, cavorting with his native women and performing the Satanic miracles he had learned from their priests.
Just and true are your ways, Lord,
he prayed.
I will show him the supreme power of your miracles.

John drew his sword. When he prayed, it seemed that it could cut through almost anything or anyone that dared stand in its way. He hoped this fight would not come to mortal blows; he did not want to lose one of his own. Driving these new pagans from this new land would suffice.

He brandished his weapon. “To the flower-decked abomination! In the name of the Lord, forward!”

Part II. The Descendants of Thomas Morton

Morton married five craft-trained daughters of American Indian powahs and chiefs. When five of Morton’s children learned all the lore their parents could teach them, and learned to lighten their hair and complexion to pass by the lax standards of the Providence Plantation, they left Maine for Rhode Island. By Puritan and English law, they were illegitimate, but the New World was too large for such distinctions. Two of the daughters disappeared into families that would beget snooty members of the DAR. One of the sons missed the woods and journeyed north to join the Iroquois. Another son chased wealth under another name and forgot his lore.

The eldest son, Jonathan, kept the Morton name and lore and found a piece of half-cleared land not far from water that made the hairs of his arms stand on end. “Here, father,” he said to no one visible, drawing a native knife and slashing his palm. He dripped his blood into a porringer, then poured it out at the points of the star geometry preferred by the Cavaliers. He buried the empty porringer at the center of the star. On that ground, he built his House.

The first Morton House adopted a pious and unassuming camouflage, indistinguishable from its various neighbors and quickly forgotten, with only three low gables. The only overt occult decorations were the spirit stone carvings. One crack in the walls, a necessary imperfection, ran from basement to attic.
No one here but us witches.
Jonathan was determined to avoid his father’s exile. The mellow followers of Roger Williams were happy to oblige. Their colony prospered and Jonathan prospered, in mutual causation.