The Cornerstone Page 17

  “Nay, my good playwright, have another taste. It’s the best leaf available. I’ve carried it here straight from the highland fields of Peru.”

  Marlowe inhaled again. How could he not? At that moment, a rumbling under his feet and the growing din of iron-shod wheels on cobblestone gave him a start. From the increasing avalanche of noise, he was convinced a monstrously huge coach or wagon must be passing outside. Gripped by an irrational fear, he strained to see though the leaded panes to the rutted dirt track that passed through the village but all was total darkness, neither starlight nor torchlight on the river, nor falling snow in the moonlight. It was as if he were looking out the window with his eyes pinched shut. He staggered back from the sill, heart pounding in his breast. The ivory pipe slipped from his fingers but somehow ended up in the grasp of Magister Coronzon before it hit the floor.

  Coronzon stowed the pipe in its hidden pocket and smiled cordially, as if he’d heard nothing unusual. “Did you know our learned Dr. Dee has an alchemical laboratory?”

  Marlowe swallowed. “I-I did not.”

  Coronzon nodded sagely. “Aye, ‘tis a wonder. What he does in there is part of the reason men fear him for a sorcerer.”

  Marlowe struggled to get his brains unscrambled. Had the pipeweed been laced with something? “He seems a fair gentleman to me. I…see no reason to fear him.”

  Coronzon laughed a most melodious laugh that insinuated itself around the room, caressed the candle flames, and stroked the heavy timbers of the ceiling before settling itself in Marlowe’s thick russet hair. Or so it seemed. He shook his head as if to wake from a dream.

  “I believe my Lord Walsingham has departed. Come below, sir, and have a final cup with the Professor and myself. We have something to show you that I think you will find fascinating.” Coronzon crossed nimbly from window to doorway almost before Marlowe could register that he had moved at all. Struck dumb, he followed the tall, slender figure out of the library and down to the main room where Dee waited beside the great fireplace.

  Coronzon nodded without speaking, and Dee pulled on his heavy cloak and handed Marlowe’s to him. The three of them exited the front door and went out into the night.

  Kit Bayard rose to his feet. He’d wasted too much time dawdling around with ghosts of the past when those in the present demanded immediate attention. He stretched to his full height, letting the kinks unwind from his spine. To mere mortals, he cut a smart figure in a black turtleneck, khaki cargo pants which he loved for the many pockets, and Moroccan leather boots with a slight heel. To the minions of Death, however, he must seem a withered, pallid shade who refused to cross over. This pending afterlife, for want of a better term, had its attractions, but lately it wasn’t following the agreed-upon rules as he understood them.

  “I don’t know what you’re playing at,” he said aloud, “but I am still master of the buachloch and don’t either of you forget it. You cannot remake the terms of the bargain.” At least he didn’t think so.

  The image of Dee and his black-caped companion ignited in his brain. What had they told him, those two, when his ownership of the stone was sealed? He tried to remember the exact words.

  “Have a care not to touch anything,” Dee admonished him as they made their way around tables packed tight with beakers, retorts, cauldrons, vials, and grinding stones. He followed as bidden, Dee’s tall gangly figure ahead of him, Magister Coronzon’s presence behind him like a warm breath on the back of his neck although the man was several feet away. They’d entered the mysterious building in the side yard with a raw wind at their backs, but once inside with the heavy iron-hinged door latched shut, the air was still with no hint of the escalating storm. In the pitch dark, Dee had struck flint with practiced accuracy, which caught a piece of charcloth and produced a tiny flame. From it he lit a fat beeswax candle ready beside the door. He held it aloft and details of the room leapt into view.

  At the back of the laboratory, on one of its windowless stone walls hung a drawing nearly as tall as a man. Marlowe stared at the lone symbol inscribed there—it wasn’t an astrological sign or a foreign letter like a Hebrew aleph. Black ink on parchment, it took the shape of a circle with a smaller circle inside like a single eye, a crescent on top like horns and a vertical line descending from the bigger circle to represent perhaps a body with a shorter line midway across it where arms might be depicted. The vertical line terminated in an inverted crescent, somewhat suggestive of legs. It bore the vague suggestion of a humanoid figure (a horned Cyclops came to his mind), but in truth, it looked like nothing he’d seen before.

  Dee followed his gaze. “‘Tis a glyph given to me in divine meditation. Thus you see an angelic expression of the ineffable unity of all Creation. I have used it as guidance in my philosophical and mathematical studies.”

  Again, Marlowe could think of nothing to say. The man was obviously deadly serious, but it was clear that his mind operated on planes not normally frequented by ordinary people. Dee seemed to sense his confusion. “A difficult concept to grasp, of course. Some years ago when I was much younger I penned an exhaustive interpretation of it. Monas Hieroglyphica, ’tis not likely you’ve read it.”

  "The Hieroglyphic Monad,” offered the Magister, crowding from behind in the tight squeeze between a heavy, long worktable in the room’s center and deep shelves containing laboratory glassware and corked vessels filled with who knew what. If Marlowe had decided to retreat and leave these two to their own dark devices, he could not have done so without a physical struggle. He stood, trembling, caught between the two taller men, grim in their black cloaks.

  “You’d something to show me—was it this?” He nodded toward the glyph, hating the fact that his usually sonorous actor’s voice had gone tremulous.

  “Nay,” answered Dee. “What I have for you rests there.” He led them to a small round table hidden in the shadows of a corner. On the table rested a leather bag closed at the top by a thick drawstring. It seemed innocuous, a simple leather bag containing…something round. Marlowe could not stop the imperceptible trembling that had gripped his frame.

  “Magister, if it please thee…” Dee stepped to the side of the table. “Thou hast the better skill to describe what is within,” he said, indicating the bag.

  Marlowe felt sweat slick under his armpits, despite the cold. It was vaguely disturbing how Dee spoke formally to himself and Walsingham, but slipped into the informal mode of address when conversing with Coronzon. They were much more than mere acquaintances, that much he kenned.

  Marlowe jumped as Coronzon laid a hand on his shoulder, but then his muscles relaxed, the shudders flowing out of him like the trickle of spring water over a rill. “What we wish to show you was made by the two of us, using the blended skills of sorcery and alchemy. It has served Dr. Dee well these many years, but now we feel that to achieve its full potential, it would better serve a lusty younger man of the quickest wit and possessed of a hotblooded taste for life and adventure.” He paused, as if to let that much sink in. “Would you not say, my good playwright, that this is a most fitting description of yourself?”

  Marlowe rubbed at his eyes, trying to clear the clouds in his head. But yes, he did feel a surge of potency at Coronzon’s recognition of his charisma and intellect. It was gratifying to find company who could recognize a man’s worth for what it was. “Aye,” he said, looking from Dee’s long serious face to the closed bag. Coronzon he could feel at his back, but not see. “I believe the description is apt.”

  “Perfect! I can think of no better candidate for her ladyship.” Coronzon squeezed Marlowe’s shoulder ever so slightly and let go.

  “Behold.” Dee untied the knot and spread open the mouth of the bag. He pushed it down around the sides of what appeared to be an ordinary chunk of weathered granite.

  Marlowe leaned in closer. “‘Tis but a rock.”

  Coronzon’s lilting laughter again. “Only to the uninitiated does it appear so. Look again.”

  Upon closer scru
tiny Marlowe saw in the flickering candlelight that indeed the roundish surface was incised with whorls and spirals, punctuated at intervals with diagonal slashes. A clear image of the sun, with uneven rays extending from a perfect circle, appeared near the top. Although certainly no expert in antiquities, he knew enough to recognize the stone as something ancient, akin perhaps to the monument at Stonehenge, which he had in fact visited.

  “What you see is a kerbstone from a passage tomb in the Boyne Valley of the Irish isle.” Dee pointed to the solar disc. “Sun worshippers, holding in reverence the elemental powers of Creation. Do you know what that portends?”

  Marlowe took a breath. “Earth magick…the strongest kind.”

  Coronzon clapped him on the back. “Did I not say, my esteemed doctor, that Master Marlowe was the perfect choice?”

  “Is’t enchanted, then?” Marlowe felt as if he could hear it singing right at the edge of hearing.

  Dee pulled the bag away so that the stone sat unfettered on the round table. “‘Tis not the rock itself, but what is within that holds the power.”

  “Power that may be yours,” added Coronzon softly at his ear, “if you choose.”

  They stood, shoulder to shoulder, in silence as Marlowe stared at the stone, its barely felt siren’s song a tickle in his ear. “What lies inside?”

  Dee ran thin fingers over his beard. “By my troth, ‘tis a bain-sídhe.”

  Marlowe fell a step back. “God's death…” Words failed him, something growing alarmingly common the longer he kept company with these two.

  “Yes, my illustrious wordsmith,” purred the scholar from Wittenberg, if that was indeed his real profession, “we have trapped a banshee within this ancient burial stone. Moreover, the witch who called her for us resides there as well.”

  Marlowe took another step away from the baleful stone. “But…to what end was it made?”

  “The power over life and death.” Coronzon’s pale eyes caught the firelight. “More specifically, the one who claims ownership over the stone literally holds his own death at bay, for an eternity if he so chooses.”

  Marlowe wiped his brow. “And which of you is its master?”

  Dee bowed imperceptibly. “That honor is mine.”

  Struggling to work it out, Marlowe fought with his muddled thoughts. “But why give’t up? I fail to see—”

  “I was an older man when the buachloch was made. I have not aged greatly since that day, but it takes all my strength to retain that status quo. A man more robust in nature and personal ambition could profit beyond measure from it.”

  “The binding spell that holds the bain-sídhe requires that she, as the Herald of Death, cannot call the Black Coach for you until you wish it. Further, she must ensure your life force continues to thrive. If, for instance, a poetaster such as yourself were to embed the stone in the foundations of a theater, all your endeavors there would likewise prosper.”

  Marlowe’s imagination began to take flight. His ambitions to become the greatest writer of his age could perhaps be realized with certainty. He tried to think it through. Looking back to Dee, he asked, “Can your body be killed while you possess the object?”

  Dee shuffled his feet. “In a manner of speaking. This body can be damaged, even to the point of death, but gradually it will revert to the state it inhabited when ownership was sealed. For expediency, naturally, if this seeming death were witnessed by ordinary men, one would need to take on a new identity once the body recovered...to prevent the Church from burning it to ashes as a manifestation of the Devil.”

  Coronzon cleared his throat. “Part of the bargain of ownership is that the banshee must protect the life of the owner, especially where discovery is concerned.”

  Dee added, “If, mayhap, the soul’s earthly vessel is destroyed, as by burning, not even her ladyship can prevent the Black Coach from coming to collect its due.”

  Coronzon breathed in his ear. “But a careful man might live indefinitely, thriving on the bounties of an extended life. You have all the time in the world in which to accomplish your most cherished ambitions.”

  Again silence descended as Marlowe contemplated the stone. Could he truly wield control over such a talisman? He knew himself to be a willful personality with a strong sense of identity and arrogant confidence in his mental agility—tonight’s escapade excepted—but he was no mage. He felt there must be details Dee and his companion were not disclosing, perhaps a lot of details, but his growing desire to have the stone was pushing his sense of caution to the side. It also occurred to him that if his spywork for the Crown were to turn deadly, here was a means to save his life.

  “How does one take possession of the bain-sídhe?” he heard himself ask.

  Coronzon stepped forward. “A simple blood seal. ‘Tis quickly done, and the stone becomes yours.”

  Marlowe licked his dry lips. “How, exactly?”

  Dee pushed back his voluminous sleeves and bent toward the stone. “Observe.” He pressed both palms down over its surface, and appeared to be communing with the entity he claimed was ensorcelled inside. Then he released the stone and stood to his full height. In the flickering shadows, he resembled nothing so much as a carrion crow. He gestured toward the stone. “Touch and feel her presence.”

  Marlowe reached out tentatively with his left hand and rested it palm down on the cool surface. He felt the spirals under his fingertips and then something else—a tingling sensation that raised the hairs on his arm. He could almost make out the voice now, a keening Dies Irae such as one might hear at a Mass for the Dead. He raised his eyes and found Coronzon’s riveted to him. “That’s right,” the soft voice whispered, “you hear her, do you not?”

  Marlowe nodded.

  “If you agree to take ownership and make the seal, she will appear to you in your mind, as your servant.”

  Marlowe’s hands were shaking, but there was nothing he could do about it. “Verily, must I shed blood to claim the stone as mine?”

  “The bain-sídhe is nourished and bound to you by blood. This you must do if you are to bind her to your will.”

  Marlowe cast his eyes back toward the carved stone that continued to tingle under his fingers. “H-how much blood?”

  Dee reaching into his robe. “A small amount.” He opened his hand and a slim dagger with a handle of inlaid mother-of-pearl lay across his palm. “An ensorcelled athame, which also belongs to the owner of the stone.”

  Marlowe’s breath hissed. That blade looked sharp.

  Coronzon said, “Do you wish to become owner of the buachloch and master of the bain-sídhe, who will be bound by spellcraft to preserve your life?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Done.” Swifter than thought, Dee plunged the dagger into the top of his hand, driving it through meat and bone into the very rock itself.

  Marlowe howled from pain and shock as small bones splintered, blood vessels ruptured, skin shredded. His body shook as if with palsy as he stared at his hand, pinned to the stone. The athame was embedded to its hilt, dark red blood pooling and spilling over the rock and tabletop. His knees buckled, but Coronzon swiftly caught him with an arm tight around his waist. A cacophony of screams, voices old and very young, roared in his ears and he felt consciousness slipping away as pain beyond endurance flared up his arm and over his body. He was barely cognizant of Coronzon grabbing his free hand and pressing it onto the stone awash in his blood. The stone turned red-hot and seared the flesh from his fingers as they made contact.

  Smoke rose from the granite surface and slowly coalesced into a shape, a woman in a shroud, at first with luminous sea-gray eyes and silver seaweed hair, but then dissolving to rot and finally revealing a death’s head with a few scraps of hair and flesh clinging to its whitened surface. The ravening mouth, from which came the unbearable shriek that he’d imagined only a moment before as faint singing, rushed toward him, gaping black as a starless night.

  Marlowe screamed and screamed till his throat was raw, but the Magister�
�s grip around him was iron. And in a blink, his soul fled his body.

  He hovered above the table with the glass retorts and crucibles, watching two tall men inflicting bloody torture on a shorter man, for what reason he couldn’t immediately fathom. At that moment a presence materialized beside him—a young man of perhaps nineteen or twenty with golden hair and eyes the color of the midsummer sky. The youth smiled at him with full, rose-tinted lips. The features were otherworldly, but familiar. Coronzon.

  In his disconnected state, he knew it was a glamour, but welcomed the artifice anyway. How not? The youth was beautiful almost to the point that Marlowe could not bear to look at him. Come with me, the shining figure said, holding out its shapely hand. Marlowe’s shade took hold, and instantly he was astride the back of an enormous dragon, its scales like armor plate beneath his thighs, sweeping over unfamiliar lands far below. The youth’s body melded itself against Marlowe’s back, arms around him in a warm embrace that belied the freezing cold of the dragon’s flight. See what we two can do? said the voice beside his ear. Say to me now…what is your will?

  Marlowe leaned backward into the caressing arms and gave himself over to the swoop and glide of the dragon’s muscular wings. He said without thought, “I am yours.”

  The vision popped like a soap bubble, and his soul slammed back into his body, still held on its feet by the unyielding arm of Magister Coronzon. But now, oddly, he felt nothing as he studied his bloody hands gripping the stone. The elegant demon who was now his pledged companion took hold of Marlow’s right hand and wrapped it around the hilt of the embedded dagger. “Pull it out and the bargain is sealed.”

  Marlowe gripped the pearl handle and looked up at Dee, who had retreated further into the shadows of the laboratory. Without a word, he tightened his flayed fingers around the hilt and withdrew the athame as if pulling it from butter. In shock he stared as the stone soaked up his blood like water over a diver’s sponge, and slowly, inexorably, his hands began to heal. Flesh rebuilt itself, bones realigned and made themselves whole, veins knit themselves together. He watched in fascination as the pearl-handled dagger fit itself perfectly to the palm of his open, unscathed hand.