The Necromancer (6 page)

There is an overwhelming sense of helplessness growing amongst us. The people feel they no longer have any control, and with the recent property disputes and this business of witchcraft, it is quite understandable.”

He turned and faced Ambrose.

“I need not tell you how this applies to your Miss Harrington’s case.”

Ambrose nodded.

“The people want more control over their lives. They want to feel safe. They are angered by the events which have transpired of late.
I
am angered!”

50

The Wood

Hathorne drew a deep breath then continued.

“Susanna Harrington may be innocent, but it will be very diffi cult to pose that case before the court. Witches are guileful creatures, are they not?”

“They are.”

“And is not that guile the most threatening of their powers?”

“It is.”

“Perchance there is a manner of course which can be taken with grace, though I have yet to discover it.” He turned back toward the window. “I have no more desire for spilt blood than you. It is regrettable we must deal in such disdainful matters, but the Lord has seen fi t to hand us this lot, and we must employ the best of our wits to do right by Him.”

Hathorne turned back again to Ambrose.

“I shall consider the matter most profoundly,” he said.

“Perhaps there are wiser ways of grappling with the Devil.”

*****

“Tituba,” he said.

She stirred.

“Tituba. It is I, Reverend Parris. Awaken, so that I may speak with you.”

Tituba opened her eyes and stared through the bars at her previous master. He was solemn but looked graciously upon her.

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The Necromancer

“I have come to further discuss with you the crimes for which you stand accused. I do not believe you have spoken the whole of your testimony.”

“Oh, but Master Parris, I have.”

She looked nervous. Her eyes darted back and forth.

He knew she was lying.

“Tituba,” he said insistently.

“Master Parris, please...”

“I need to know. What has you so fearful that you shall hold your tongue?”

“I beg you, Master Parris, do not make me say it.”

“You must. If you fail to make a full confession, you shall most certainly die and be damned.”

“Master Parris...”

“Say it!”

Tituba looked up at him meekly, then dropped her head like a scolded child.

“Say it!” he barked again.

Tituba relented.

“It was late in December,” she said. “I was in the wood, returning from Goody Hibbins’s cottage with the candles Mistress Parris sent me for, when I heard a scream. I stood still. It was a windy evening, so I thought mayhap it was the wind. I was not sure it was a scream, so I kept walking.

Then I heard another scream. It was surely a woman’s scream I heard. I stopped again. I was affrighted, but I ran toward the woman’s voice. I thought mayhap I could be of some aid to her.

“‘Help,’ she screamed. ‘Mother of God! Help me!’”

52

The Wood

“I ran as fast as I was able, but I still had no sight of her. Then I saw a young maiden running and screaming between the trees. A man in black robes was after her. He was fast at her heels and he sprang on her. They fell behind some bushes, and she went quiet.”

Tituba’s head dropped. She sulked silently on the fl oor, her chest heaving in spasms.

“Go on,” Parris goaded.

“I gasped, then shut my mouth with my hand. I feared mayhap he heard me. I could see nothing now but the maiden’s hand. I stared at it. It was so white and smooth. I stood there for a spell. She did not move. I knew she was dead, but I was so affrighted I did nothing.”

Tituba remembered that moment vividly. It had

seemed much quieter now that it was over and the woman was dead. The winds, so dry and cold, continued to whistle and howl as if Death were reveling in the claiming of one more soul.

“I raised my eyes from the fl oor of the wood and the maiden’s hand. Then I saw him, and he saw me. He had eyes like ice, but a strange fi re burned in them also. I could feel them on me, and I thought I would surely die.

“He walked to me. For a long time I could not move.

I tried to look away, but I could not. I do not remember what happened after that. My mind was touched. I only remember running back through the wood...running home.”

“Who was it?” Parris asked. “Who did you see?”

“Don’t make me say it. I wish not to say it.”

“You must.”

“He will hurt me. He is strong. He has powers.”

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The Necromancer

“Powers? What kind of powers?”

“Wicked powers. Evil powers.”

“A warlock?”

She nodded.

“Who is he? Tell me his name.”

She remained silent.

“Tell me, damn you!”

“The Reverend...It was the Reverend Blayne.”

“Reverend Blayne?” Parris said. “Preposterous!”

Tituba sobbed.

“It was! I tell you it was. Never would I say such if it were not true. I remembered it was him by the eyes when you and he and the Judge and Sheriff came to me in prison. Never could I forget those eyes. Never will I forget them as long as I live. He is a terrible man. He made me promise not to tell, lest he should punish me again, but more severely.”

“When did he punish you?”

“When I was still in prison in Salem, he beat me and...

and lay with me.”

Parris’s face fl ushed red. Tituba’s testimony was too debasing and horrid to be ignored. He believed her. He was too outraged to say anything, but his mind was fi lled with rage and indignation:

This man Ambrose Blayne, who calls himself a reverend and a
witch-hunter, is nothing of the sort. He is an abomination to the cloth and
humanity. He must be made to answer for his crimes.

Parris stormed out of the prison and headed back to Salem, knowing Tituba’s testimony to be true and being all the more enraged by the fact.

54

Fergus and Odara made love before a large crackling fi re on the animal skin rugs they had acquired from Fergus’s numerous hunts. His quarries’ heads were mounted on every wall in the room: A lion from India; a gray wolf from Siberia; a tiger from the jungles of Indonesia; an elk from Scandinavia. They all looked on dispassionately as the two naked people wrestled on the furs in the fl ickering amber fi relight, tending to each other’s desires.

Tears fell from Odara’s eyes. She whimpered sweetly, bringing her legs up to Fergus’s waist and wrapping them around him, squeezing tightly. He groaned. She pulled him down to her and bit his shoulder as she clutched the fl esh of his back, digging her nails in deeply. He groaned again. He relished the pain. It brought him closer to the brink. He could feel himself fi lling up, preparing to fi ll her. He seized her breast and kissed it, then took her hard brown nipple in his mouth.

She cried.

They held each other as if it were for the last time.

He rose up and thrusted into her faster, then slow.

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The Necromancer

They trembled together, and Odara felt his hot fl uids squirt inside her. He fell on top of her, breathing heavily on her elegant white neck. They embraced, and she wept.

They lay together like that for a long time, a time that could never be time enough.

Fergus rolled onto his back and looked up at the lion’s head. Odara rested her head on his chest, draping her long dark hair over his shoulder, her ample breasts pressed to his chest, her legs straddling one of his, pressing her wet plot of pubic hair against it. She dabbled in his chest hair with her fi ngers and looked up at him.

“You seem troubled, dearest,” she said, raising her head.

“I do?”

She nodded.

“I am. I sense a terrible event will come to pass. I cannot see it, and that distresses me most of all. I have tried the shew-stone, but it avails me nothing.”

“What of the spirits? Surely, they—”

“They are of no use.”

He turned on his side, and she rolled onto her back again. He looked at her with concern.

“Make me a promise.”

“Whatever you wish, love.”

“Promise me you shall be on your guard while I’m away in the Orient. I could not imagine what I would do if I lost you.”

“Can’t I journey with you? It’s painful to think you shall be gone from me again for so long a time.”

56

Odara

He placed his hand gently on her stomach.

“Have you forgotten already?”

Her belly was fl at and toned, and it wasn’t yet time for her next menstruation, but they both knew.

“The journey is most arduous and long. I think it prudent that you stay here where the servants can comfort you and take care of you as your condition becomes more delicate.”

“Must you leave?” she asked, placing her hand on the one he placed on her abdomen.

“It cannot be averted. You know that, though I wish it were not true. The Magi have made demands of me and cannot be kept waiting. They will get their pound of fl esh even if I should decline. Do you not remember Rome?”

Rome had been the place where the Magi fi rst

contacted him. They had been touring the city, studying the ruins, and were in the Flavian Amphitheater, in the hot summer sun when Fergus suddenly dropped down on one knee, clasping his hands to his temples.

A strangled scream escaped him. The whites of his eyes turned red. His nose bled. Every blood vessel in his eyes and sinuses had been ruptured from the pressure building up inside his head.

“Dearest,” Odara said, afraid to touch him. “What’s wrong?”

“My head...the pain...” he said, then collapsed

unconscious on the amphitheater steps.

He had visions...not dreams. The Magi had made

efforts to contact him before, but he wouldn’t listen. Their signs had been too subtle, too easily dismissed as fancy and coincidence. But those signs had been too numerous to ignore.

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The Necromancer

Spiritually, he was prepared to heed the signs and fulfi ll his obligation to those he had never met nor heard of before, but physically—mentally—he had trouble accepting those duties.

A voice clamored in his mind.

“We have watched you and your progress on the path of the
righteous and the strong and the wise. Now the time is come. It is you who
have been summoned by Us, the Magi of the Hidden Realm, to fulfi ll
your magical endeavors. Are you prepared to receive the degree of Adeptus
Minor, the fi rst of three degrees before you must cross the Abyss or forever
become a Brother of Darkness?”

“I am,” Fergus responded automatically, without

thought.

“Then take up the Great Work and learn the Nature of your
True Self and your Holy Guardian Angel. The ordeals will be many.

You must consider every event as a direct dealing between yourself and
God. Do you understand the nature of these ordeals as they have been
conveyed to you?”

“I do.”

“Then let the ordeals of the Great Work commence at once.

Fergus opened his eyes. They were healed. He still lay limply on the steps, his head resting in Odara’s lap as she brushed the hair back from his forehead.”

“How do you feel?” she asked.

His skin was clammy and pale. He still looked a bit disoriented, but was able to respond.

“Well,” he said. “I feel well.”

“Can you walk?”

“Yes,” he replied heavily, rising to his feet. “Yes. And I have much work to do.”

58

Odara

That was almost a decade ago, and now, as he lay next to Odara, he contemplated the initiation that would ultimately decide his fate as a magician. It had taken nearly ten years to attain the degree of Adeptus Exemptus—the last of the three degrees he had accepted from the Magi—and now he pondered the Abyss. He would have to cross it to be initiated as a Magister Templi, or be cast out of the Hidden Realm and be forever committed to the Brotherhood of Darkness.

The ordeals had been severe. He had suffered the hells of starvation, fever, loneliness, desolation. The Magi had tempered him well with toil and pain. His will was strong. However, he had not yet attained the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel—his higher self; his true will. But now Fergus had powers even the scriptures hadn’t intimated. All those years of solitary study and training, sometimes compelling him to be away from Odara for many months; all the abstinence and fasting; the hours of meditation; the long walks across deserts and countries had paid great dividends. But he regretted one thing: all the time he had to spend away from Odara, the woman he loved.

Odara had been a magician in her own right, but she was content with her magical development and didn’t have the drive or the need that Fergus did. After all, Fergus was the man and could provide for both of them. After this last ordeal was performed, Fergus would never have to leave her again.

*****

of their cottage and out back to Dreng, the black and white stallion which Fergus had already fed, watered, and saddled-up with all the supplies he would need to make the journey.

It was a chilly October morning. A thick, brooding fog had rolled in from the Firth of Forth so dense that one could see nothing beyond arms’ length but an opaque white fi eld.

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The Necromancer

The weather wasn’t promising, and he wasn’t as well-equipped for the journey as he would have liked to be, but the Magi had always made his labors arduous and insisted he travel lightly in the most extreme conditions.

“It will be a diffi cult journey,” Odara commented.

“I expect nothing less.”

“Godspeed, love.”

Their lips touched and they became immersed in a deep and longing kiss. Both of them trembled slightly. It may have been the cold, but both felt a gloomy sense that this would be the last time they would be together again. They had experienced such desperation on the other occasions Fergus had gone away, but somehow this seemed stronger, more fi nal.