Dave Duncan - The Alchemist's Apprentice

I was staring down into a tent. It was dim, lit by two small lamps suspended from the ridge pole, but luxuriously carpeted and furnished with elaborate chests, a divan, a silver ewer and basin. Steel mail and a sword hung on a stand by the entrance. Seemingly right below me, a man sat cross-legged on a cushion under the lamps, reading. I could see that the writing was Arabic, and needed no demon to advise me that I was spying on one of the sultan’s generals. His face was hidden from me by a turban shaped like a giant pumpkin, much bigger than his head, but he wore a sleeveless tunic and a complicated, multicolored skirt that barely reached his knees. He could not be the sultan himself-unlike his warlike ancestors, he stays home in safety in Constantinople, and he would command far grander quarters if he did venture into the field-but someone of importance. What was Putrid playing at? What loophole had I left in my instructions?

The man looked up, frowning and tilting his head as if listening to something. He was dusky and weathered; he had silver streaks in his beard, but his face was lean, vulpine, and still dangerous.

The flap lifted to admit a second man. He was young, short but heavyset, swarthy and bearded, and he wore very similar garb. He salaamed to the general. There must be millions like him in the Ottoman Empire, from Hungary to the Persian Gulf, from Libya to the Caucasus-fierce Muslims all, fanatically loyal to their sultan-but very few of those would have a fiend sitting on one shoulder as this one did. In shape the horror resembled a tailless rat with red eyes and a grin that showed sharp teeth, but its texture was slug-like, bluish and slimy.

The general had risen, but he clearly did not register the fiend, because he listened calmly to whatever the visitor said. I could not hear a word and would not have understood it if I had. The general salaamed in response to whatever message or instructions he had just received. He went over to the portable table with the ewer and basin and there proceeded to wash his hands. The visitor watched, smiling contentedly, while the fiend hugged itself in glee and chomped its teeth.

I still had no idea what was going on; I just knew that I could not approve of anything that a demon enjoyed so much. No doubt there are possessed walking the streets of Christendom, too, even here in the Republic. I was identifying this one and his rider only because I was seeing them through Putrid’s eyes.

Hands washed, the general returned to the center of the tent, knelt down with his back to his guest, and began to pray in the Muslims’ fashion, bending to touch the rug with his forehead, leaning back to raise his arms. To my astonishment, the fiend disappeared. The visitor did not seem to notice its absence any more than he had shown awareness of its presence earlier. What surprised me was that the Muslim’s prayers had dispelled it at least as effectively as a Christian’s would. Was the name of Allah as effective as the name of Christ? That was certainly not what the Church taught. If the unbelievers worshipped the Antichrist, how could their prayers banish demons? I would be burned as a heretic if I ever suggested such a thing.

The fiends must be trying to deceive me.

The general ended his prayers and the demon reappeared where it had been before. The general sat back on his heels, his visitor walked across the carpet to him, looped a cord around his neck, and strangled him. The fiend jumped up and down with joy as the general thrashed in his death agonies. I may have cried out in horror, but if so no one noticed. I had asked to see a murder, hadn’t I? Putrid had shown me the wrong one, perhaps the murderer’s first murder, his initiation.

When the assassin was certain his victim was dead, he drew his sword. At that point, I admit, I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, the corpse on the floor was headless and a blood-spattered turban lay empty and collapsed beside it. The visitor seemed neither upset nor especially pleased by his gruesome task, nor by the weighty leather bag he held. He was possessed, after all, and no doubt believed he was loyally carrying out his sultan’s orders. He probably was. Turning his back on his grisly work, he headed for the door-and his demon looked up and saw me.

I could not hear its shrieks of rage, but I could see them. The possessed turned again and returned to stand directly below my vantage point, but now his face was blank, his eyes lifeless. His passenger was dancing with fury, almost glowing with it, making clawing gestures at me and becoming larger, its spongy flesh swelling like dough, its eyes flaming redder. I was seized by a terrible, paralyzing, horror that it would leap out of the mirror at me.

I clapped my hands three times. The image blurred, steadied slightly, and then faded-all except those two red eyes. I yelled out the words of dismissal, but of course those were addressed to Putrid and I did not know the name of this other fiend, to which it had betrayed me. For a moment the mirror showed the two hate-filled red eyes superimposed on me and the atelier behind me. Then, mercifully, they disappeared.

S ummonings always leave me feeling sick and unclean. Even after I had replaced the furniture, wiped out the pentagram with my dustrag, and burned my notes in the fireplace, I was still shaking like a fatal case of palsy. I kept wondering whether a hateful little slug fiend was now perched on my shoulder, invisible and gloating as it planned the horrors it would make me perform.

Back in my room, I stripped and washed myself all over with cold water. Tired though I was, memories of the ordeal would keep me awake for a long time, and I had an invitation to call on a lady who thought nothing of playing all night and sleeping by day. I dressed in my shabby burglar clothes, doused the light, and prepared to go visiting. Of course I was disobeying the Maestro’s orders by leaving the house unarmed, but I could neither ask Bruno to accompany me on my tryst nor risk my death-defying leap while encumbered with a rapier. I stopped worrying about being murdered when I opened the window and discovered that the stormy weather had returned, blustering rain about, making roofs slippery, and plotting to throw acrobats off their timing. Very likely the Maestro had misinterpreted his bleeding eyes-and-legs vision and it had nothing to do with assault. I hesitated, but not for long. I needed Violetta too much just then, and not for lust. I needed comfort and understanding and her arms around me, her warmth and love.

So I scrambled out on the ledge and then went through the nasty contortions required to replace the bars, for I never leave the window unguarded in the night. That was not the easiest of maneuvers in such weather and the leap in darkness wrung a prayer out of me. Obviously I survived, although I banged my left knee on the tiles.

A light burned in her room, for she never sleeps in complete darkness-unless her current companion insists on it, I suppose-and I could see that she was alone. She stirred while I was undressing.

“Alfeo?” she murmured drowsily.

“Are you expecting someone else?” I asked, hoping the answer was No.

“No. The nobility are in mourning.”

I wasn’t. I slid between the sheets, into her arms, her warmth.

Jolted awake, she said, “ Eek! You are freezing!”

“Only on the outside. I love you. I need you.”

“I’m here, love. What’s wrong? You’re trembling!”

“Rough night. Just hold me.”

The night fled, the lamp burned out, and chinks of daylight came to smile through chinks in the drapes. My knee hurt. The rest of me felt much better.

“Time to go,” I whispered.

“Not yet.” Helen stirred sleepily. “I have something to tell you.”