Perfect Shadows

chapter 39

Northumberland rubbed his hands together, then dipped a finger into the pot of blood before him. He began tracing the complex lines and circles of the conjuration on the stone floor of his new study, in the vault under the ruins of the old chapel. Let his enemies try to burn this one down, or even find it, he gloated to himself. Sommers was lighting the candles, black with designs carved into them and filled with red wax. It was the last quarter of the moon, most propitious for the spell he had in mind. He drew the last, and most complex, symbol, then stepped from the circle, closing it after him.

He took the heavy Templar’s sword from Sommer’s hands and began the antiphonal chants, while Sommers grunted the responses. Soon the temperature in the stuffy chamber dropped, and Percy could see the puffs of his breath with each word he spoke. In the center of the circle a cloud was forming, more tenuous than his own vaporous breath at first, but gradually coalescing into a human form. The transparent man stood gazing around the room, his sad and frightened eyes taking in the earl and widening in recognition. “Harry?” The lips formed the word, but the sound seemed to come from everywhere. Sommers started, the sheen of sweat on his forehead glinting in the candlelight. He was trembling, fear and excitement commingled. “Harry?” the apparition spoke again, sounding like a lost child.

“Well, Robin,” Percy mumbled, his tongue suddenly thick in his mouth.

“Am I not dead? What holds me here?”

“Thou art dead, Robin, and I hold thee here,” Percy answered, then motioned Sommers forward to confront the reluctant spirit. “Do you see my servant, Rob? He was once as you are now, a wandering ghost. I put him into the flesh, and so I can do with you. A reward, perhaps, for your aid to me.”

“My reward is in Heaven, Harry, and there I had hoped to be ere now. Of what aid may I be?”

“You know a great deal, and have the power to know even more. If you do not wish a fleshly reward, there can still be punishment. I could encase you in the body of a dwarf or other grotesque, and cast you adrift in the world. You might get as far as Bedlam, a little mad thing raving that he is the martyred wild Earl of Essex. What think you, my Robin? Would it not be a better thing to help me willingly and then take your surcease of suffering forever?” The distressed spirit cried out, then raised its hands in a gesture of submission. Percy put his questions, and the spirit grew more and more agitated, but brought forth the answers that he could not have known in life.

After a time Percy pronounced himself satisfied for the time being and dismissed the spirit, who dissipated with a mournful cry. The earl retired to his study to ponder what he had learned, and sent Sommers out to secure a suitable monster to keep on hand should Robin become recalcitrant and require an incentive in the future.