Herbie Brennan - Faerie Wars

He glanced across at Blue. She had the other book Atolmis had brought open on her lap. It was a lot smaller than the one Henry was holding and a lot less scary. He wondered how she'd feel about a swap, then dismissed the thought as unworthy. And stupid. He looked back at the thing in his hands. At least it wasn't glowing yet.

Henry turned another leaf and came upon a contents page. His nervousness increased. Listed in an ornate hand were:

Concerning Works of Hatred and Destruction… 5

Concerning the Hand of Glory… 22

Concerning the Mirror of Solomon and Vessels of Brass… 30

Concerning the Sanctum Regnum and Binding Pacts… 36

Concerning the Rite of Conjuration… 39

Concerning the Almadel… 55

Concerning the Arbatel of Magic… 61

Concerning the Enchiridion… 70

Concerning the Seven Mysterious Orisons… 80

Concerning the Black Pullet… 88

Concerning Fortitude… 93

Concerning Virgins… 100

Concerning the Silken Cloth and Wands Various… 109

Concerning the Mystery of Books… 120

It all seemed very spooky to Henry, most of it the sort of thing you shouldn't be reading at all. And none of it seemed to have much to do with Pyrgus. Henry decided to start at the beginning and work through, skipping anything that wasn't relevant. He turned to page five, Concerning Works of Hatred and Destruction.

It was a nasty chapter and, despite a resolve to read carefully, he found himself skimming it. But by the time he reached the end he was fairly sure there was nothing in it about Beleth and certainly nothing about Pyrgus.

The Hand of Glory described in the next chapter proved to have a ghoulish fascination. To make one, you waited until they hanged a murderer at a crossroads, then cut off the right hand of the corpse, wrapped it in a piece of winding sheet and squeezed it firmly to get rid of any remaining drops of blood. You then put it in an earthenware jar along with nitre, salt, long peppers and zimort.

'What's zimort?' Henry asked Blue, frowning.

'Shhh!' Blue said.

After two weeks you took the hand out and exposed it to the sun during the dog days, or dried it in a wood-burning oven fuelled by fern and vervain.

'When are the dog days?' Henry muttered.

'Oh do be quiet!' Blue snapped impatiently.

While the hand was drying out, you made a candle from the fat of a hanged man, mixed with virgin wax, horse dung and sisamie.

'What's sis -?' Henry stopped himself and went back to the book. You jammed the candle between the fingers of the dried hand and the Hand was ready. Now all you had to do was light the candle and anybody sleeping in the house would be unable to wake up until you blew it out again.

Was that all there was to it? A cure for insomnia? It seemed a lot of trouble for very little, even though the book assured him that after it had been used a few times, the Hand of Glory took on a life of its own and would crawl about the place looking for somebody to strangle. You had to keep it in a locked drawer at night for your own protection.

He skimmed the next two chapters then started to read about the Rite of Conjuration. At once he realised this was in a completely different league to the superstitious nonsense that had gone before. It was like a step-by-step technical manual, telling you how to call things up out of Hell. It described machinery you could set up, precautions you had to take, all the – Henry stopped dead. He'd just had a brilliant idea. The most brilliant idea of his whole life. 'Blue – ' he said excitedly.

Blue closed her book with a snap. 'This is useless!' she said angrily. 'He mentions Pyrgus. I knew that already. There's stuff in here about some stupid pact with Beleth and how they tried to kill Pyrgus and how Pyrgus got away. But there's absolutely nothing about what's happening to Pyrgus now or how to rescue him or anything. Useless! Useless! Useless!' She pounded the book with small fists in frustration.

'I know how to rescue Pyrgus,' Henry said.

With Blue's eyes on him, Henry's confidence suddenly ran out and he hesitated.

'Well?' Blue asked impatiently.

He had to say something. But he couldn't say what he'd been about to say – it was just too loony. The trouble was he couldn't think of anything else.

'Well?' Blue asked again.

He was committed now. Henry said, 'The thing is, the Rite of Conjuration is sort of general instructions for calling something out of Hell. At least I think that's what it is. It talks about Beleth because this is The Book of Beleth, but you could use it to, you know, to call anything. I thought if Mr Fogarty was right and Pyrgus really is in Hell, we should be able to, like, conjure up him.' He hesitated, then added weakly, 'It would get him out.'

Blue was staring at him, her face an absolute blank. Then she said briskly, 'Worth a try.'

Blue led Henry up a flight of narrow steps to an empty tower chamber with a lockable door. 'If we try this in my quarters we might be interrupted,' she explained. 'But nobody ever comes up here – and if they're looking for me, they won't know where I've gone. Now tell me what stuff we need and I'll go and get it.'

Henry consulted The Book of Beleth. 'There's trapped-lightning machinery, but that's only if you're calling Beleth himself. And there's… oh – ' He stopped.

'What's wrong?'

'You have to kill an animal and skin it to make the circle. I'm not sure I could do – oh, wait a minute: that's optional.'

'So what is it we actually need?' Blue asked him patiently.

Henry looked at the floor, which was bare wood boards without carpet or any other covering. 'We need something to draw a circle on this floor. And a triangle. I suppose chalk would do, something like that. And we need charcoal and incense – '

'What sort of incense?'

'Doesn't say. Oh, wait a minute, I think it must mean you use camphor as incense. Camphor. Yes, camphor.'

'OK.'

'And something to burn it in. Incense burner or a brazier, something like that?'

'OK.'

'And we need verbena wreaths – '

'How many?'

Henry consulted the book. 'Two.'

'OK.'

'And two large candles in their holders. It says black here, but I think white since we're trying to get hold of Pyrgus – black's all witchy and demonic, isn't it? Sort of thing they used in the old Hammer movies on TV.' He caught her expression. 'You wouldn't know about that, would you? Anyway, two large candles. In holders.' He frowned. 'Do you know what Rutanian brandy is?'

Blue nodded. 'Yes.'

'We need a small bottle. And something called haematite – have you ever heard of haematite?'

'Bloodstone,' Blue said. 'I can get a piece. Is that all?'

Henry consulted the book again. 'It says you need a blasting wand, but if you read ahead that's just so you can control the demon. I don't expect Pyrgus will cause us much trouble.'

'If it works properly.'

Henry looked at her. 'What's that mean?'

'If it works properly,' Blue repeated. 'If your idea works. If we call up Pyrgus. If we don't end up calling up Beleth or some other demon by mistake.'

Henry felt a sudden tightness in his lower abdomen. 'You think we might?'

'It's possible.'

'So we do actually need a blasting wand, just to be on the safe side?'

Blue licked her lips. 'Well, to be on the safe side.'

'Do you know where to get one?' Henry asked.

'No.' She stared at him. 'I mean, if we had more time I could probably send one of the servants… but not if we're going to do this now; soon, I mean. No.'

After a moment Henry said, 'We'll just have to do without the blasting wand then. I'm sure it will be OK.' He glanced back at the book. 'The only other thing is something called…' he stumbled over the pronunciation. '… asafoetida? Asafoetida grass? Do you know what that is?'