TOULOUSE FRANCE, 2022
The next day Philipe and I moved my boxes to Fourteen Pouzonville. I say Philipe and me, but I mean me, for he carried nothing. Philipe whistled. My ears folded over from the sharp sound. “Thea Umbra, the spinning top herself. You old goat!”
“Don’t be rude. Besides, I thought you said she was ugly?” I unpacked my collection of various wands, trying my best to forget his comment. Each wand was designed to accomplish a different kind of work. I had wands for carving, inlaying, and moulding. I had a sturdy white oak wand with mercury inlay that was impressive when smelting nearly any metal. Getting mercury to remain solid is a pretty piece of magic, indeed.
Philipe leaned against the entryway, his leg bent at the knee and foot against the door frame. “She’s not that ugly, but I meant that I didn’t take you as all in for the pain stuff. Does she hang from tenterhooks by her nipples and just bob?” There were more lewd allusions which I shan’t repeat.
I set down my box of coils and wires with a thud. “I won’t have you insulting a lady in her own home!”
“Oh, hit a nerve then?” he asked, bending over with arms akimbo and slinking forward. “Had your slimy red cock up her meat grinder? Seems she got the balls too!”
He laid a punch against my arm, laughing. My ears furrowed. His eyes widened, and he took a step back.
“She may hear you,” I said.
Philipe recovered and laughed. “Maybe, if half the things I’ve heard are true, she’d probably invite both of us up on the spot. Sides, she owes me. Might shave a bit off her debt if we can spit roast her for an hour or two.”
That was a bit too far. I was very sore on the issue of him screwing her over, and now that she was to be my roommate and had treated me so kindly — well, there was a line and he’d just sailed right over it! “Mademoiselle Umbra was kind enough to offer me accommodations, to invite me into her home, and now you slander her on my invitation!”
I stomped towards him. He stepped back and stumbled out the door and onto the Rue Pouzonville as if I had swept him there like dust.
“I rescind it,” I said, “you cur!”
“Boz, wait, I didn’t. Don’t be cross.”
I had a mind to beat him around the ears. I mastered myself. His infamies aside, he wasn’t a horrible person, just very ill-bred.
“I won’t have you speaking ill of my connections. Not in their foyer, at the very least!”
“You seem bothered, and it’s not about this snakey bint.”
“You’re right; you killed that girl. I helped you kill her. I feel just as guilty as you should.”
“Killed who?”
“Are you mad? The girl, the wench?”
“You mean that Drow slave? Zounds Boz, she doesn’t matter.”
“She’s a person! Of course, she matters!”
“No, she’s a worthless soul slave; they aren’t people. What’s wrong with you?”
I crushed my lips together and scowled. “She was an innocent girl, and you strangled her, and Mademoiselle Umbra had to save your worthless bollocks. Then you turned around and screwed her over and made me complicit in that too!”
“Boz, relax. I’m your friend here. You’re always talking about wanting to hobnob with the rich; well, this is what it’s like. You’re getting all bent out of shape for a keno.”
“A keno, you mean like me?”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Satyrs are part human; the other part is an essence. You’re not like a Drow or a Goblin, like a real keno. You know the words for things, but you don’t understand ‘em, not really. No one becomes a soul slave by accident. It’s not like the cunt was frolicking among the daisies and someone came along and enslaved her.”
“I didn’t say that, but it doesn’t mean you have to treat them like dirt.”
“Yeah, Boz, it does. The weak become familiars or slaves in this world. I’m telling you this as your friend. If you try and fail, you’ll end up just like her.”
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“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if you try to move in this world and show you’re weak — you know the first law of magic. You have to agree to participate. That’s what you agree to. You’re either going to be a Master or a slave, and there’s nothing in between. So grow a spine and stop mewling about all the poor and tragic victims of life.”
I didn’t know what to say. He was right. Deep down, I knew it and understood it. It was so easy to focus on the beautiful parts of our world. Having it spelt out as clearly as this put me in grave danger. If I chose to continue down this path that I had set out on, I had to accept that if I failed, it could mean death, enslavement, or maybe something worse.
“I know that,” I said, lying. Well, I knew it, but it hadn’t been at the forefront of my mind. Philipe wasn’t a particularly skilled sorcerer. I wasn’t afraid of him; we were at least equally matched. But he was sly. If he was telling me this, it could mean he intended something. Maybe he saw me as weak, and wanted to convert me to a familiar or trick me into something worse. From now on, I would have to keep my guard around him.
“Look,” he said, “I’m sorry I made you mad. About your roommate. She’s not so bad.”
“I accept, of course. But if you don’t go now, you’ll miss your train to Nice.”
“Will you see me off?”
“I would like to, of course, only I have to finish this. If I show up at our rooms tomorrow, the dean is likely to skin me for it.”
We waved our goodbyes. His posture straightened as he walked towards the corner. I went back inside in a foul mood, and I admit to having mistreated some of my boxes before the cloud above me cleared.
Later that evening, I mounted the stairs up to the sitting room. I found Thea thumbing through a book in front of the fire. That winter was particularly chilly, and I was glad for the warmth.
As clever as Thea was about magic, she was the opposite about business. I wouldn’t say she had lived a sheltered life; something about her made me suspect a lot of tragedy and hurt in her past. All her knowledge was centred on the arcane, and most of it was theoretical.
“Have you given much thought to your sign?” I asked after a few minutes of quiet.
“No,” she said. “Now that you mention it. Though I’m not sure, I can afford a sign.”
“How will you advertise?”
“I haven’t figured that part out yet.”
“Well, I have a solution for the sign, at least.”
“Oh?”
“You happen to know someone with exceptional woodworking skills,” I said. She looked as if she would laugh.
Later I selected a particularly well-aged piece of hickory for the sign and carved it into an oval with a raised Ouroboros. In the centre, I printed in bold letters Thea Umbra, and beneath it, I added The Amazing Arcanist. I listed some of her best services. Curses. Demon Possession. Fate Adjustment.
From a similar piece of wood, I made my own sign, a square with dancing Satyrs and a Greek-styled border. I wrote my name and under it, Maker of Fine Wands and Magical Curios.
I hung it outside the door on a curved piece of fencing I had found. I placed a simple seal on it that only required the sacrifice of a rat. It protected the sign from the eyes of anyone who wasn’t looking for alternative solutions. I thought it best to let it apply to mundanes and the Eldritch equally.
The first week was very quiet, mostly strange or mentally disturbed mundanes. Three of them wanted to know if Mademoiselle Umbra could repel space aliens. After two of them asked about roughly the same thing, I suggested she might want to sell protection amulets.
Neither of us could say for sure if space aliens exist or not; there are many Elder gods who live outside the Earth. One is literally the Moon, and one likes to swim in gas giants and is said to have visited Saturn eleven times in the last million or so years.
As far as we could tell, none of them were particularly interested in abducting or persecuting out-of-work gas station attendants or florists. Crazy Euros spend as well as sane Euros, as the saying goes. There were two missing cats, which Thea produced almost instantly by summoning them. Their owners were appreciative and suspicious as if she’d been running around Toulouse snatching up cats and keeping them in the basement to ransom.
It was difficult to explain to another customer that Mademoiselle Umbra didn’t do exorcisms, more the reverse. It sounds a lot worse than it is. Demon Possession is really more of a euphemism for getting properly rogered by a well-endowed Hellspawn. Usually for bored housewives with a bit of magical sensitivity.
I could see that Thea was very frustrated. Being a consulting sorcerer had not been what she imagined. Without a reputation for cursing, hexing, or the arcane, she wasn’t likely to attract anything but weirdos for the first few months.
I was not doing so well either for the first week. I had been under significant delusions myself. At first, I laid it down to failing to make any good connections at the funeral previously. Aside from Samson, that was thanks to Thea.
I decided I was simply being impatient. After all, there was Fulvia’s upcoming soirée on the winter solstice, and it would likely be quite the to-do. I had an invitation from her grace directly at the Green Lion, and she had even remembered to send a sinfully expensive paper invitation in sparkling indigo ink. One had arrived for Thea as well.
Samson had come by to drop off Cecily at the beginning of the week, and I decided to get to work on her repairs. I held the sword in my hand and studied it closely. It took some of the most powerful magic to bind a human soul to an inanimate object. Doing so imbued the object with powers. Some swords became impervious to damage or could detect hidden enemies. Shoot flames, lightning, or anything really. There was no rhyme or reason to it.
I almost dropped her at one point and unthinkingly reached out to grab her by the blade. She didn’t cut me, though I could feel that her blade was unusually keen. Instead, she hummed, and I had a distinct impression that she was demanding I be more careful.
The repair had not been difficult, though I spent some time talking with Cecily — after a fashion anyway — to make sure that what I planned wouldn’t injure her or cause her pain. I didn’t know what to expect, but I had to use a lot of heat to reshape the pommel and inlay the new garnet stones.
We developed a bit of a rapport. Her communication was more like images and ideas than words. Once I had completed the work, I polished her up and made some minor corrections to the border around her ladle.