Christopher Buehlman - The Necromancer's House

There’s no record of follow-up, at least not from the Soviets.

I’m sure they laughed their dicks off at this guy.

But someone wasn’t laughing.

This Lemenkov went chasing a doe a few days later and disappeared. They thought he deserted. But they found him dead, naked, holding a tree. He had been crying; they know this because his tears were frozen on his cheeks.

His eyes were frozen in his head.

The dude who told on Dragomirov froze to death.

In June.

And nobody fucked with Yevgeny Dragomirov again.

Are you following this? He got some spooky witch pregnant at the same time his wife supposedly got knocked up. But his wife took no time off from the factory. Even hardcore soviet chicks take a little maternity leave. Nothing. Nada. Nyitchevo.

You know what I think?

I think that was Baba Yaga, in the woods, with the smoke and rabbit tracks.

I think she walked right up to Dragomirov’s house with an infant in her arms and made Dragomirov’s wife raise the baby.

I think your rusalka killed Baba Yaga’s son.

Two:

I attached a one-paragraph article about a grave-robbing near Nizhny Novgorod.

A body was taken last week.

It probably would never have made the paper, but it was the body of a heavily decorated hero of the war against the fascists. Even in these days, you don’t fuck with Second World War heroes. You know how protective we are about ours? The Russians are even more hardcore about their WW2 vets, they worship those guys, and for good reason.

I’m getting off topic.

The point is, it was our guy.

Yevgeny Dragomirov got exhumed last week.

I didn’t advertise a three, but there’s a three.

Three:

Somebody’s trying to hack me.

Hack ME.

Seriously?

I tracked the probable source to the Ukraine, and it shouldn’t be long before I have a name and address.

And then?

I bring the whoop-ass.

I’m thinking maybe a…

But I’ll keep that a secret in case he or she intercepts this.

I REALLY don’t think there’s much chance of that.

But.

If you ARE reading this, cocksucker, you should think about taking a little vacation, and not going near anything with a screen and a plug until Carnaval season. Or until the Mayan apocalypse comes.

Which it won’t.

Except for you if you don’t go low-tech, and I mean now.

Which I hope you don’t.

I’VE GOT SUCH A COOL SURPRISE FOR YOU!

Vermont.

Anneke squats froglike, fingering the leaves of the maple sapling she just petrified.

“I want to rest,” she says.

Her head hurts and she’s nauseated; the living tree fought with all its sap and chlorophyll and nonverbal stored-up common sense against the unnatural thing she was doing to it. It felt like having an argument in which you knew you were wrong but won because you were better at arguing and eventually, unjustly, wore your opponent down. She wrung the juicy and vibrant parts of it out with an ugly, strong hand she never knew she had, and now it stands before her white and bleached and dead; still beautiful, but beautiful because it is impossible; no sculptor could carve or shape such thin and perfect leaves from granite. Even as she thinks this, a leaf falls from its branch.

It’s exquisite , she thinks.

This would sell for twenty grand.

Michael just looks at her, sitting in his camp chair, drinking his coffee. The lesson takes place in a patch of woods between the farmhouse and the quarry.

This old bastard’s not going to let me rest.

He sees her looking at him and just nods at the tree.

“I don’t feel good,” she says.

“You’re not supposed to. You just broke the laws of nature. Now make it right.”

She bites her tongue.

Broken laws of nature surround them; Michael Rudnick appears to live in a quaint New England farmhouse neighboring an old quarry, but really he lives in the quarry. A perfect overhang of granite hung with vines shields a vintage Airstream trailer. Doric columns modeled after those supporting the Athenian temple of Hephaestus seem to prop the ledge, and brick walls of varying heights partition the space, keyholed with nooks and alcoves wherein unquenchable oil lamps glimmer by night. Stone benches and chairs surround an impressive fire pit topped by a chimney in the shape of a human mouth open to breathe in smoke. How the trailer got into or is supposed to get out of the neoclassic wonderland is not apparent. Rock stairs lead down to the opening beneath the ledge, and another set leads to water.

The trapezoidal lake that has collected at the quarry’s bottom half submerges an outsized sculpture and cypress garden: a granite elephant jets water from its upraised trunk, cyclopic giants, Atlas-like, hunch beneath gardens erupting from stone troughs, a mischievous-looking cherub crouches on a pedestal above the waterline, holding a stone to its chest in the posture of a pitcher, a pile of other such stones at its feet. It seems to be eyeing the steps. The stones are the size of volleyballs. Woe betide anyone approaching Michael’s cave with fell intent.

She looks at the stone tree.

Feels the echo of its vanished life, how surprised it was to find itself so violated, cut off from water, numb to sunlight. Dead. When she touches its trunk she feels its absence.

“Put life back into it.”

She tries.

“See it happening.”

She pictures the breeze blowing through supple leaves.

Nothing happens.

“It’s not like moving rocks,” she says.

“No. It’s intimate.”

She tries.

Her head throbs.

“Why are there no schools?” she says. “Harry Potter and all that.”

He just looks at her.

“Are there?”

“You’re in one.”

“But a big one. Like a university.”

He shakes his head.

“Magic is artisanal. You apprentice. One at a time. You’ll teach somebody, too, one day. I’ll make you promise before you leave here.”

“Somebody must have a school.”

“Workshops go on in some actual universities. Grafted to them, working veiled. Antioch College in Yellow Springs is a fine example. They had three users in the faculty at one point. They made students they wanted to teach magic get accepted in other fields, fields they taught in the system.”

She remembers her embarrassing introduction to that town, how she hurled herself into a bathtub, off the wagon, and at a toilet.

“Andrew went there?”

Michael nods.

“Studied Russian. And more.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“There’s talk every few years. But everyone’s scared. Three’s the most users it’s wise to gather at one place for very long.”

“Why?”

“Something changes.”

“So nobody ever tried to found a big, dedicated university?”

“Schools were founded. Couple of times.”

“What happened?” she says, absently touching the leaves of the dead tree.

“Different things.”

“Bad?”

“You could say that.”

“Tell me.”

“Most successful one was in England, started in the 1580s. Hid in plain sight. In Deptford, just down the river from London. Did some big things. You know how Spain could never seem to land an armada? It wasn’t just once. They tried three times, got swamped by storms three times. That was no accident.”

“And?”

“They kept killing each other. The survivors determined that too many users together makes it turn dark. They agreed to separate.”

Now she just looks at him. There’s more, and she wants to hear it.

“Last big one was France, outside Paris. Between the wars. Like a dozen users, thirty or so students. They exchanged oaths of fraternity, made loyalty and friendship more important than the magic, drummed out anybody who seemed greedy. Called themselves The Order of the Duck. I saw pictures. Real cute with the short pants and tall socks, even berets and sacks of baguettes, like the stereotype.”