Night Magic (2 page)

Where was there a wiser man in all the world than Solomon, great Solomon whose wisdom was known unto all the corners of the earth? Who could make a juster, more disinterested, more sublime judgment, when it came to solving a quarrel or mending divisions, whether of lands, chattels, or even babes in arms? Who but this great magus-ruler, whose empire stretched from river to river, sea to sea, the greatest kingdom a living man had ever seen.

But in a neighboring kingdom there lived a glorious queen, the beautiful and desirable Queen of Sheba, and it was arranged that this monarch should travel to the realm of great Solomon, and there the two rulers should meet and determine what degree of mutual admiration existed between them. And so it was that mighty preparations went forward, all with the idea of making a great celebration when the two monarchs should first set eyes upon each other.

Now, it was widely known that the king and his wizards had for many years been compiling a great book meant to contain all the secrets of magic and necromancy, spells, enchantments, and the like, and when all this arcana—including the secrets of the ancient Egyptians, who were after all the first magicians—had been gathered together and written down upon scrolls, the book was known as
The Key of Solomon,
a work of enormous value, for he who could delve into its pages and learn from its lines would have power to make jealous the very gods. And jealous was the king, Solomon, who highly prized the work that bore his name, and he was resolute that none but qualified wizards and magi would be made privy to its precious pages, its formulae and incantations. For it was this compilation of wisdom and knowledge that contained all of the secrets known to man until that time.

But when the Queen of Sheba was come to Solomon’s domain, and welcomed as befitted her crown, the king carefully put away his books, for he had other matters to consider, romantic matters of the sort to which any man might wish to give his full attention. And thus it was that Solomon, forgetting the cares of the day and the meditations of the night, engaged in intimate conversation with the fabled beauty who was his guest, and who so willingly offered herself to him. Meantime, and while the guards were slow witted with the wine that had been generously dispensed to one and all, the greatest treasure of the kingdom,
The Key of Solomon,
was stolen.

A cold dawn brought the realization that the king had been robbed of that which he most cherished, and, still somewhat befuddled by drink, Solomon set about retrieving from his brain all he was able to remember of the book. But the scrolls and their contents were irreplaceable, and who could possibly remember all they contained? And in his rage and misery the king sent away again the woman he had meant to make his queen, in order to spend his remaining years on earth striving to recapitulate the contents of the great
Key.
In this endeavor, wise as he was, Solomon failed miserably.

And no one, neither the great wise king, nor his clever advisors, nor indeed anyone at the palace, had taken time to notice the mendicant who had departed through the wide-flung gates, with property not rightfully his hidden under his smelly rags, property whose possession he craved as a thirsty man gulps for water, a dying man for life itself. A fraying, knotted thong hung around his neck, and suspended from that thong, against his bony chest, he wore the Eye of Horus.

He could fly!

Couldn’t he?

Through the thinnest of air, he had levitated himself before the court, before Nero himself; had defied Peter the Fisherman, laughed in his face, then risen from the marble floor and floated high and free in the air while the court and the emperor sat aghast, the wine spilling unheeded from their cups. Consternation! Disbelief! Fear! A gaggle of astonished voices, murmurs, cries, applause, puzzlement, yet before their very eyes…

He had done this, hadn’t he?

A magician from Samaria, whom the heretic Christians branded for having begged of the apostles, those sheeplike men, to touch him with their hands and make his magical powers greater, had offered them money in exchange for this service. Naturally they refused, called the sin by his name: simony. For he was Simon Magus, the Great Magicker.

Simon’s feats were truly miraculous, greater than those of that other magician, Jesus of Nazareth, who, it was said, had turned water to wine, had made the dead rise and live, the blind see, had fed a hungry multitude from some paltry loaves of bread, a fish or two. But Simon Magus—greater by far, for while the Nazarene had rendered unto Caesar what was his, the Samaritan had made docile the mad despot of Imperial Rome—by his magic had the emperor eating out of his hand, and Simon himself wore the purple, a wizard’s robe with symbols embroidered in gold thread, a marvel of a garment.

There were many stories about the magus broadcast throughout the empire. This was one: Before the throne of the great Nero the magician knelt, while a centurion clutched a sword, stood over him, and with a vicious blow struck his head from his neck, and blood ran on the marble and women fainted and men turned pale; but no sooner had they bent to remove the remains than they discovered the curly-coated body and horned head of a slaughtered ram, while the magus in his purple gown and undecipherable symbols appeared amid the throng, in perfect composure and decidedly whole.

Another story: He had a mirror, a magic mirror, and that which it reflected was not necessarily real but only what one thought was real, and he made it seem that the mirror cast reflections of those things that were coveted and lusted after. There the dead and departed might be seen again, or the beauty of a woman, or all the treasures of the earth—whatever was wanted.

In the magic mirror he conjured up the vision of Helen, wife of the Spartan King Menelaus and the ruin of Troy. Not only conjured her, they said, but brought her to living life, though this poor creature was no more than a gutter whore in whose body the real Helen resided. In arrogance, and defying all morality, he washed and dressed her, gave her perfumes and jewels, and paraded her in the streets like a queen, this Helen-whore, indifferent to the laughter that the sight of her provoked among the multitude.

It mattered little, for he had the crowd’s applause, the rich rewards, money given into his hand, honors conferred, not the least of these the patronage of the emperor. Of course they said the magician had hypnotized Nero, had seduced him through the fraudulent Helen and trick stage effects. A charlatan, nothing more.

For what man could have his head lopped off and still live? Who indeed could fly that was not a bird? Who could bring the dead Helen to life in another age?

It was only illusion, they said.

It was.

Wasn’t it?

But who could tell what was truth, what was illusion? The magician could, though for him illusion was the true reality.

Who was mightier than Merlin, prophet, magician, and privy councillor to Arthur the King? Who but he had provided for the establishing and prosperity of the kingdom, as well as for the very engendering of the king? And yet Merlin had become a sorrowful, lonely figure, bent under the weight of his vast knowledge and terrifying because of his occult powers and his uncertain (some said diabolical) origins. Long before the events, he foresaw the hideous ruin awaiting Arthur’s realm, the treachery and faithlessness, the internecine carnage, friends striking down friends, brothers slaughtering brothers, the king and his only son barbarously murdering one another in simultaneous paroxysms of rage. It was likewise with Merlin’s own personal doom; the seer could foretell but not forestall it. A power, greater still than his, would seek him out. And so, it seems, he deliberately went to meet it.

His fate was not long in arriving. Her name was Viviane.

She was one of the damsels of the mysterious Lady of the Lake, and she came to Arthur’s court as part of King Pellinore’s entourage. From the moment he saw her, Merlin would let her have no rest; he must be at her side, he must converse with her, he must gaze into her dark and disingenuous eyes. The girl fought down her revulsion, along with her scorn, and learned what she could from this decrepit sorcerer while prudently keeping him at a distance.

So they traveled together into the forests of Cornwall, each entreating the other, he for her supple body, she for his secret wisdom. And there Merlin lured Viviane into the hollow of a great tree, where, at last, in exchange for the promise of an embrace, he made known to her certain fatal charms and revealed the magical properties of the ancient Eye that hung on a gold chain about his neck; whereupon, stepping lightly away from the tree, she spoke the appropriate charm.

Though he knew there was no escape, he could not keep from struggling against the bark thickening around him, pressing against his chest. As he tried to lift himself from the tree, his arms were pinned above him, and he felt the blood ebbing from his feet, which grew cold and stiff, anchoring him like roots to the earth. He could not speak. His breath came hard, catching in his throat, where it chilled, congealing like ice. He had foreseen it all, but not this, to be so cold. His hair swarmed above him, twisting into the branches so that his head ached and he could not turn his face. His eyes searched the narrowing gap. He saw the bright fabric of her dress, and then the slender pale hand darted through the weaving, encircling fibers to snatch the gold chain from his neck. He raised his eyes and saw above him new green shoots where his fingers had been. The next things he saw were the last: Viviane’s exultant, pitiless eyes, laughing at him from the face of a man older yet than he.

Acolytes swung heavy censers, and clouds of strange, aromatic incense filled the great hall with intoxicating perfume. Silver stars embroidered on the blue damask that covered the walls of the room sparkled in the dancing light of a hundred candles. Placed at intervals along the walls, pedestals of polished wood bore statues of Egyptian deities. In the middle of the room stood an altar, and, facing it from the far wall, a golden throne on a dais covered with fine white silk. A solemn hymn begun by the acolytes was taken up fervently by the gathered faithful.

It was a noble assembly; the liveried ushers had been called upon to pronounce some of the most resounding names in France. And only in Paris could so resplendent and fashionable a gathering take place. Nowhere else were the ladies’ gowns so rich, so bright, their jewels so tasteful and expensive, the men’s buckled shoes and lace shirts and formal coats so exquisite and so imposing. As they stood and sang in the closed room, adding faint hints of sweat, powder, and perfume to the all-pervasive incense, they looked forward eagerly to the revelation of secrets that would regenerate mankind and change the world. They could not know that within a few years their world would indeed change, beyond all recognition; revolution was a phenomenon occurring in Anglo-Saxon countries, and the guillotine had not yet been invented.

The hymn ended, a hidden door opened, and suddenly the Grand Copt himself was in their midst and approached the throne, his unprepossessing figure made stately by his long black robe, his stole of gold brocade, and his tall, golden double crown, modeled after the pharaohs’ crown that signified the unification of Egypt’s Upper and Lower Kingdoms. For this was Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, Grand Copt of the order of Egyptian Masonry originally established by the prophets Enoch and Elias. He was attended by his wife, the radiantly beautiful Serafina, and it must be admitted that more than one male member of the company had come hoping to receive personal initiation into the mysteries from the countess herself.

In sonorous but heavily accented French, the Grand Copt welcomed the company, invoking the pure spirits that hovered over it. Then, after a significant pause, he plunged headlong into an ecstatic, overwhelming, not always comprehensible discourse. He was come, he said, to heal the sick, give succor to the poor, and bring about the moral and physical regeneration of the world. He would accomplish this mission through occult powers and secret knowledge arrived at over many centuries and many incarnations, a long apprenticeship that had raised him to the summit of the Great Pyramid of Being and rendered him an adept in such arcane arts as healing, prophecy, and spirit evocation. His was the white magic capable of overcoming the powers of darkness and transfiguring humanity.

He spoke at length, as though entranced, captivating his listeners with his strange imagery, his mysterious allusions, his mesmerizing eyes, the sheer force of his will. Suddenly he stopped and gestured to Serafina. The spellbound audience watched as she opened another hidden door and led out a shy young girl, dressed in a gleaming white robe with a crimson sash. This was the
petite colombe,
the “little dove” whose purity and innocence made her the perfect liaison between the Grand Copt and the spirit world. She was led to a chair surrounded on three sides by ornate screens, and she sat inside this “tabernacle,” facing the congregation from behind a table that was bare except for three candles. Hypnotically, inexorably, the High Priest induced a trance in the girl, muttering to her and breathing upon her; then, supported by the cadenced chants of the faithful, he began to adjure one of the attendant spirits to make itself manifest. Finally the child, who had been sitting stiffly and silently, groaned aloud.

“What is it that you see?” cried the Grand Copt.

The girl replied in a faint, broken voice, the voice of a scared child. “I see…a giant man…in a white cloak…with a red cross on it.”

“Ask him his name,” Cagliostro commanded, his tone a mixture of reverence and authority.

The child asked the question, her voice faint and broken as before. Then her lips moved again, but what issued from them was no young maiden’s voice but a resonant bass, uncanny and penetrating:
“I am the Archangel Zobiachel!”

The crowd gasped and shuddered, but the High Priest's voice was calm. “Do not be afraid, brothers and sisters. The spirit loves us all. Ask him to kiss you, little dove.”

There was a rushing, as of great wings, audible to the whole rapt assembly, followed by the distinct, unmistakable sound of a kiss. The girl’s right cheek glowed brightly, and a surge of warmth flooded the hall. A few people began to sob quietly. One lady, amid the whispering of silks and taffeta, slid softly to the floor and lay in a bright heap, unnoticed and unmoving.