Into the Thinking Kingdoms (23 page)

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Authors: Alan Dean Foster

Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #FIC009000

BOOK: Into the Thinking Kingdoms
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In this pleasant and relaxed fashion he passed the better part of an hour, using a pen to put a damning mark beside the names of half a dozen potential miscreants. Feeling a slight weight against his right arm, he brushed at it casually—only to have his fingers make contact with something hard and unyielding.
Glancing impassively to his right, he found himself staring down at the diminutive glass figurine. Somehow it had fallen against his arm. He frowned, but only momentarily. There was no wind in the room, so it must have been placed at an angle on the end table and fallen over against him. His thoughts focused on the ledger, he absently picked it up and set it back down in the middle of the table, and forgot about it.
Until, several minutes later, he again felt the weight against his arm.
Frowning this time, he picked up the carving and placed it, not in the middle, but on the far side of the end table. Mildly irritated with himself, he settled back into the chair and resumed reading. In minutes he had once more forgotten all about the figurine.
In the silence of the library, where no servant would dare to disturb him, a soft tap-tapping caused him to look up from his malevolent perusal. Following the sound to its source, he turned to his right. His eyes widened and air momentarily paused in its passage through his throat.
Blank of eye, black of body, the carving was tottering on slow obsidian feet across the tabletop toward him.
Leaping from the chair, the ledger falling heavily to the floor at his feet, he gaped at the tiny apparition. It promptly changed its direction to a new heading to reflect his rising.
“What manner of foreign necromancy is this?” There was no one in the library to hear him and the figurine, of course, did not reply. Nor did it pause in its advance.
“Preposterous manifestation, what are you?” Tightening his lips, he reached out and grabbed the carving. A chill ran through him as he felt it moving in his hand. Searching the room, he quickly found what he was looking for.
Into the gilt silver box went the ensorcelled figurine. A turn of the key, the click of the latch, and it was secured. Slipping the key into a pocket, a contented Bisgrath returned to his chair. “I’ll attend to you later. I count among my acquaintances many knowledgeable practitioners of the arcane arts. They’ll investigate the spell that motivates you, and we’ll fast put a stop to this unsanctioned meandering.”
Satisfied, he resumed his seat and, a bit more intently than usual, continued with his reading. Another hour passed, at which point he decided it was time to call a servant to bring some drink. He rose from the chair.
There seemed to be a weight on his thigh. Looking down, he saw the figurine clinging with tiny but powerful hands to the leg of his pants as it worked its way steadily upwards. And this time, each minute, a perfectly carved eye was glowing a vivid intense yellow.
With a cry he grabbed the carving and wrenched it free of his leg. Without thinking, he drew back his arm and threw the suddenly hideous little manikin as far and as hard as he could. It slammed into one of the tall windows that lined the library’s west wall. Even before it did so, he found himself wincing. Fine leaded glass was immoderately expensive.
But the windows were thick and well made, and this one did not crack. Neither did the carving bounce away. As he stared, it adhered to the transparency and, beneath his incredulous gaze, began to diffuse into it, glass melting into glass. The figurine grew smaller and smaller as a black stain spread across the center of the window. It continued to disperse and disseminate until it had disappeared completely.
Realizing that he was breathing hard enough to make his lungs ache, Bisgrath forced himself to calm down. Approaching the window, he reached up to feel gingerly of the place where the carving had struck. There was no sign that anything was amiss. The thick glass was not chipped, and even up close there was no sign of the corrupt foreign blackness that had appeared to diffuse within the material.
Quite astonishing, he thought. He would have to inquire of learned acquaintances as to the meaning of the episode. Meanwhile, there was work to be done. But first, something to drink.
Using a pull cord to summon a servant, he once more returned to his chair and to his malicious scrutiny of the ledger’s contents. Finding several more prospective victims helped to relax him and set his mind at ease. When the servant knocked, he barked an irritable “Enter!” without looking up from his work. The choosing of unwitting innocents to savage never failed to raise his spirits.
Entering silently, the servitor approached with tray in hand—only to signal his entrance with an abrupt metallic crash that caused Bisgrath to look up sharply. “What the blazes do—” He halted in mid-accusation. The servant was not looking at him. An expression of utter terror was imprinted on his face. The silver tray lay forgotten at his feet, the contents of the pitcher it had held having spilled out across the immaculate hardwood floor.
Puzzled, Bisgrath turned to follow the man’s gaze, whereupon he whipped off the reading glasses and flung them aside, unable to believe the evidence of his own eyes.
Peering out at him from the window and occupying most of its height was an outline of the black glass carving, its eyes burning like oil lamps on a particularly dark and chill night.
With a stuttering scream, the servant fled the room. Rising and backing slowly away from the window, Bisgrath fumbled along the wall for the weapons that were mounted there. Arraigned in a decorative semicircle, they included a great number of killing devices more suitable for use by common infantry than a cultivated gentleman like himself. That did not stop him from wrenching a short, heavy war ax from its holding clips.
Uttering a cry of defiance, he charged the window. The inhuman fiery gaze seemed to follow him as he rushed across the room. It went out when he slammed the ax into the glass, bringing more than half of it down in a shower of crystalline fragments.
Panting heavily, the ax clutched convulsively in both hands, he backed away. Birdsong filtered in from outside and a cool Bondresseyean breeze blew unbidden into the library. The tall black image had vanished.
Help,
he thought fearfully;
I need a magician here to tell me what is going on.
He knew several names and would send servitors to summon them immediately—yes, immediately. He turned for the doorway. As he did so, out of the corner of an eye he caught sight of a discrepancy.
The carving had reappeared, its eyes burning as fiercely as ever, in another of the tall library windows. And this time it was not a flat, picturelike image, but a mass formed in glistening, solid relief, its thick arms reaching out, outward into the room. Ten feet tall, the dreadful apparition was composed entirely of black volcanic glass, as if it had drawn strength and substance from the leaded glass of the window itself.
Screaming wildly, Cuween Bisgrath hurled the war ax at the glossy, brutish homunculus that was slowly emerging from the thick pane of the window. It shattered noisily, sending shards both transparent and black flying in all directions. Stumbling from the room, the Proctor General tore up the stairs that led to the second floor and to his private quarters. He was going mad, he decided. None of this was actually happening. He didn’t need magicians; he needed a doctor.
He shouted for his servants, but none responded. Having heard from the servitor who had entered the library and subsequently bolted and seen the look on his face, they had one and all fled the mansion. They had found something they were more afraid of than the Proctor’s wrath.
Staggering into his bedroom, Bisgrath slammed the door behind him and threw every one of the heavy bolts. Designed to withstand a full-scale assault by a company of armed soldiers or hopeful assassins, its unrelenting solidity helped to reassure him. Breathing a little easier, he made his way to the splendid bathroom. Spacious enough to accommodate six bathers, the marble tub beckoned. He strode purposefully past, knowing that he had to find a physician to diagnose whatever ailment was causing him to experience such profoundly disturbing hallucinations. He would make a cursory attempt to clean himself up and then ride himself to the offices of a particularly well-known practitioner who specialized in unusual afflictions. And when he returned, treated and well, the shrieks of delinquent servants would make themselves heard all the way to the border with Squoy.
Cold, lightly minted water splashed on his face from the magnificent enameled basin refreshed him instantly. Reaching for a cloth, he wiped droplets clear, enjoying the reinvigorating tingle they left on his skin. Raising his gaze to the filigree-edged mirror, he tried to understand what had happened to him, and how.
Bare inches away, incandescent yellow eyes set in an impassive black mask of a face peered menacingly back at him, burning hotter than ever.
Choking on his own fear, he reeled away from the accusing, threatening face in the mirror that belonged not to him but to some emotionless brute. His fumbling fingers contracted spasmodically around the first thing they touched. Drawing back his arm, he tried to throw the iridescent drinking goblet as hard as he could at the silently taunting mirror.
The effort nearly caused him to fall. Looking down at his hand, he saw that the goblet had a hold on his wrist and would not let go. Or rather, the fiend that was emerging from the rainbow-hued glass would not.
Screaming, spinning wildly, he smashed the goblet against the marbled wall. Glass went flying in multicolored splinters, the light from a thousand fragments momentarily illuminating the bathroom with a full spectrum of brilliance and fear. It obliterated the dark demon that had been emerging from the hand-blown glass goblet, but not the one in the mirror. Blood bubbled from a dozen tiny cuts on his hand and face. Ignoring them, he backed out of the bathroom and slammed the door as hard as he could.
Articulating the wordless dirge of the living unhuman, two more hulking representations of the carving were seeping out of the bedroom windows, their jet-black bodies massive and irresistible. Leaping across the bed to the safety of the bedroom door, Proctor Bisgrath frantically drew back one security bolt after another. Before fleeing into the outer hall, he picked up a heavy iron doorstop and threw it at the nearest of the advancing homunculi. The metal struck the figure with a loud crack. Half the face shattered and crumbled away without slowing the inexorable advance of the black glass manikin in the least.
His howls and screams echoing through the empty, great house, Bisgrath flew back down the stairs. For one seeking escape, it was an ill-advised choice. From every window and mirror, from every frosted-glass cabinet and graceful chalice, the indefatigable progeny of the obsidian carving lurched and tottered toward him, heavy arms outstretched, fingers curled like black flesh hooks. In every one of them, pitiless eyes burned soullessly.
There was no way out, he saw. But maybe, just maybe, there was a way in. He had not risen to the position of Proctor General for all the kingdom of Bondressey through dint of slow wit and ponderous thinking. Whirling, he rushed back into the library.
The four monstrous forms that lumbered out of the remaining unbroken windows were each large and heavy enough to crush an entire patrol beneath their bulk. But, relentless as they were, their movements were not the swiftest. Ducking beneath the whooshing sweep of a grasping arm, he darted along the back wall until he reached a bookcase filled with innocuous tomes on the art of gardening. Moaning like a chorus of doom, the four huge figures turned to follow. A menagerie of smaller cousins poured in through the door that led to the great hall.
Pulling out a specific book that was not a book, Bisgrath held his breath as the heavy bookcase that was not a bookcase rotated silently on a concealed pivot. Ducking into the secret room beyond, he leaned hard on a lever set in the wall that was a match to the nonbook outside. The monstrosities were remorseless, but he had seen nothing to suggest that they were in any wise clever.
Since no windows opened onto the secret reading room, he found himself fumbling in the dark. But no windows meant no glass. There were no drinking utensils, no mirrors. He should be safe in the stone-wall chamber, for a little while at least. Feeling along the edge of the reading table, he located the large candlestick standing there. Using tapers stored in a box near the base, he ran his fingers up the length of the candle to the wick. Striking one taper, he lit the cylinder of beeswax and then another on the other side of the table. Warm, safe light suffused the room. Faintly, he could hear the assembling horde keening and moaning horribly on the other side of the bookcase door. Fists of heavy black glass began to pound rhythmically against the barrier, like distant drums. The pivoting gateway held, but for how long it would continue to do so he could not be sure.
Pulling priceless volumes off the wall, he finally found the one he was searching for and carried it to the table. It was bound in fraying old leather and weighed as much as a small saddle. If he could not send word to a magician, then he would make his own magic. He had done so on a limited basis in the past, and he would do so again now. Always more dilettante than pupil, he wished now that he had paid more attention to such studies. But why bother to learn the intricacies of the mystic arts when one could always hire a professional to do the job better?

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