The Summoner's Sigil Page 3

  The city was just this side of industrialized. It took advantage of the La Salle River to deposit its sludge and thermal runoff, all products of the town’s few factories. Convent was primarily known for producing one thing, Loridium, which it mined and refined. Once the process was done, it was sent out to science labs around the country for experiments.

  In the spaces between the factories were the houses and businesses of Convent, which were designed centuries ago in a German gothic architectural style. It made the whole town look like a medieval village.

  One of the nastier side effects of these advanced industries was the extraordinarily high rate of mutated aquatic life from the runoff. They were filled with Loups, draugs, and Shachihoko, a monstrous fish with tiger-like heads and a vicious demeanor to match. All of these things made life in the Louisianan Territory a challenge, but the real tribulations didn’t come from the fauna or flora, it came from the people themselves.

  On the way to the rental store, I passed a group of vagrants. Normally the destitute seemed to keep to themselves, down on themselves as much as they were down on their luck. But here in Convent, they were congregating around fires in barrels or on street corners. Some were even preaching about the end of the world.

  As I left them, heading into a better part of town, I could feel the stares of the more upstanding citizens weighing heavily on me. They seemed to both recognize me and disapprove of me at the same time. I wrapped Calidum up tight in my coat and kept my gaze cast downward. Even he could tell this was not the place to carry on a conversation.

  As my luck would have it, there were no more carriage rentals at the only rental place in the town, but there were four horses for rent. I took the gray dappled Andalusian and dropped off my trunk at their porter. He promised to deliver it to my Grandfather’s house in two days, where he would pick up the horse at the same time. I would carry the smaller, waterproof carpet bag with my money, a change of clothes, and my Rampuri.

  While they saddled my horse, I overheard them talking about President Newton’s proposed mag-lev train system. Governors were apparently already petitioning for their state to be the first to break ground for it, which most likely involved exorbitant bribes. These macro decisions affected me little, so I usually ignored them. Instead, I concentrated on not bringing attention to myself. Unfortunately, it was all to no avail.

  “Is that you Basil Beckenbauer?”

  I looked up and saw Blake Morlock Jr., son to Mayor Morlock. We had attended the same one room elementary school out on Henry’s Hill when we were children. The school had been positioned on an artificially created mound between where my parents lived and before you reached the Red Forest. Rumor had it that the mound had been built up using anything they had dredged out of the bayou a couple of hundred years ago. It mainly consisted of peat, seashells, and a few unidentified corpses, or at least that was what my grandfather used to tell me.

  While I doubted the schoolhouse had changed much over the years, Blake certainly had. He was no longer the string bean I remembered. He was tall and barrel chested now. His well-cut suit showed his wealth and class. His copper colored hair curled over his ears in a manner I was certain most of the eligible girls in town would swoon over, but I remained unaffected. I had known someone equally handsome and rakish, and all that I was left with was heartache.

  “Hello Mr. Morlock,” I said while checking the saddle’s buckles.

  “So the prodigal daughter has returned I see.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Oh, I think you will be quite surprised by how many people know about your exploits in Britannia, even over here in Convent.”

  I looked up at him and asked, “Is that so?”

  He stared rudely at my milked over eye, a casualty of the job, and then he took a step back, unable to school his reaction.

  “Are there many of Neverland’s creatures loose this far west? You might have heard that I rounded up quite a few of them before I left London. Do you think that I will be needed in that capacity here as well?” I asked him.

  Calidum chose that moment to reveal himself from behind me. It would be for the best if everyone thought that I had simply adopted some stray animal from Neverland rather than know the truth, which was that he was a demon that I had summoned from another dimension.

  Blake blanched when he saw Calidum jump up to my shoulders and wrap himself around my neck. He was far lighter than he appeared, until he caught on fire that is.

  Blake finally found his voice when he replied, “Only one or two I think have been reported.” I wondered which ones he was referring to, but realized that he probably wouldn’t have known any of them by name anyway.

  “I’ll see if I can help with that.” I didn’t have a Summoner’s way to access Neverland, even though I could open up worlds in other dimensions. I could hold the beasties temporarily though until they could be transported back through a portal located on Mermaid Isle. That portal led to Neverland, which I likened more to a parallel reality rather than to another dimension.

  “That would be excellent. Should I tell my father to expect you soon?”

  “Unless someone has been threatened, tell him I’ll see him in about a week to discuss terms.” I then resumed checking my saddle.

  Sensing I was done chatting, he said, “Well, I need to leave. I have a boat to charter south with a shipment of pecans, agate, and Loridium.” That was an odd combination to me, but who was I to judge.

  “I wish you a safe journey ahead.” I wondered if he would come across any of the gigantic radioactive sting rays along the way. Where there as one, there were bound to be many. Should I warn him?

  “Maybe we could have dinner some time,” he said insincerely while staring alternatively at Calidum and my eye. No, I didn’t think I would be warning him today.

  “Sure,” I returned with equal enthusiasm. It was easy to promise something you knew would never come to pass, and besides, it was the southernly thing to do.

  The proprietor brought my receipt to me, and then I mounted the horse. “Goodbye Mr. Morlock,” I told him.

  “Goodbye.”

  ···•Ͽ Ѡ Ͼ•···

  The rain had come early and was torrential, making the roads muddy and slick. With each clop of a hoof, Calidum would grab my neck tighter, and I was forced to keep loosening his grip. After about an hour of this game, I gave up and let my thoughts spread to the morose, just as surely as the oxygen was being cut from my brain.

  Captain Stephen Carlisle was dead. There was no use not thinking about it. It was right before me as surely as the rain was falling from the sky. No one would even look twice on this road if I decided to have a little cry. There was no fairytale ending in my future. Gosh, I was pathetic.

  It wasn’t as if we were even having an affair when he died. Flirting was not love. He never even ever kissed me properly, but we might have been something, if we had had more time. Now with him gone and my eye issues, no one would ever fall for me. Even if my being a Summoner was not an issue, I was past the respectable debutant age and deformed on top of that. In addition, many men claimed that they had issues with women with cats. Now that I was saddled with Calidum, I was a lost cause.

  As I road on, I just couldn’t get Stephen’s death out of my mind. No one should ever have to see someone else beheaded. It was just wrong, but if I were being honest with myself, it was no more wrong than the rest of my life was. The only thing I had to live for now was the chance to communicate with Grandfather’s spirit.

  Wendy probably thought I was going to attempt to reach Stephen, but neither of us needed that right now. I didn’t know if I would eventually receive my pardon from Grandfather, but I did know that I could die a peaceful death only once he had given it.

  I allowed the cold rain and wind to chill my bones, just as surely as my heart had frozen into an icy block. The land was just as rural as I remembered it, as the gray light slowly leeched from the sky. Most of the trees were evergreens, live oaks, and
long needle pines, with only the bald cypresses showing off their new green skirts.

  A fox crossed my path, pausing momentarily to stare at me, its body a dark silhouette against the sandy shortcut I took through a glade. It evaluated the threat I made, and then dashed into the woods, full of fear. Later an owl swooped overhead. Those were rare nowadays, so I paused to listen to its wings swipe the air for a moment, needing to find food even in the dismal rain. Other than that, all I heard and saw was the rain hitting the foliage around me, and the mare’s hooves slopping against the puddles in the soft earth. For once, the world and I were in synch with one another.

  I was a Summoner of a nine plus class, who was now legal to work in the Republic of America. Work would search me out, but I worried that it would still be illegal in nature. Maybe I’ll be busy working for the government clearing out beasties from Neverland for a while. I wondered what the agent waiting for me at the house was going to say to me. While my mind fretted over these things during the last few miles to my house, what I didn’t worry about was reuniting with my family, because I already knew how that would go.

  I almost laughed when I finally reached my family’s ancestral home as all the lights surrounding it were out, making the property take on a decrepit and haunted appearance. Whatever repairs needed to be done had to be scheduled with contractors in Convent, and they often passed over the little jobs that my family needed until they had a long enough list to make it worth the trip.

  I walked under the stone arch with the protection ward that had been inlaid into the rock by a Lapis User many generations ago. The ward bent and broke once it recognized my genetic makeup, and I entered the Beckenbauer estate. The black lamp posts appeared as lone soldiers guarding the route to the house. After another ten minutes of slowly clopping along the cobblestone promenade, we turned a corner and I let my gaze settle over Rose Glen.

  The house was a neo-classical behemoth with three stories and wrap around porches on each floor. There was a grand staircase leading up to the second story where the main floor was located. I knew that inside there were ten bedrooms, five bathrooms, a grand dining room, a small ballroom, and even an atrium at the back of the mansion.

  The bottom floor was half in the ground, intended for servants back when we used to have human ones. I knew my family had purchased several of the mechanized ones over the years, except for the cook, Mrs. Haverty. She was an elderly woman who came from Convent. During the week, she stayed on in the house full time, but went back to her family on weekends and holidays. She usually left cold meals for us on those days.

  I brought the horse to the stables and put her in a stall. My uncle was the one who usually tended them. It wasn’t because we couldn’t afford a stable boy, but rather because he loved the beasts more than he loved the people who lived in the house, and I found that I mostly agreed with him. But now that he was blind, he wasn’t above hiring out some of the local children to be his assistants during the day.

  After I situated the dappled gray, I fed sugar cubes to the rest of the occupants in the stable. There were two teams of carriage horses, one of Cleveland Bay and another of Gelderland. There were also five riding horses, an American Saddlebred Horse, a Lipizzaner pair, and a pair of Quarter horses.

  Besides the horses I was familiar with, there was a new addition, a beautiful black Morgan. I spent more than a few moments stroking its mane. When I looked up at the saddle holder rack, there was also one I had never seen before. I could only assume it was the agent’s horse.

  After I checked the automated system, which was set for clean up in the morning, I decided that I would feed them some apples too. I knew I was procrastinating entering the big house, but I found comfort in the familiar task.

  While I fed one of the Quarter horses a Red Delicious from the bin, I asked Calidum, “Where will you sleep tonight?”

  Calidum jumped onto a bale of hay. “I will stay out here tonight. I have much to talk about with these creatures.”

  “But they don’t talk.”

  “Of course they do, but your people refuse to listen to them. Besides, your nervousness is ruining my mood.”

  “I’m not nervous.”

  “How were you planning on explaining me to your parents?” Calidum asked abruptly.

  I frowned.

  “I’ll stay here for the night,” he said.

  I wanted to argue with his logic, but in the end yielded and said, “All right, you can stay out here tonight, but it will be only for tonight. We are leaving for my house by the lake tomorrow.”

  “As you wish,” he replied and then he tucked himself into a hay bale. “Good night.”

  “Sleep well.” I turned on the gas powered heat lamps and then headed back outside.

  My teeth began to chatter as I approached the main house. A light was on in the bottom story, which I found odd, since no one really went down there much anymore, except for the automatons to recharge. I wondered for a moment if it was the agent. It fell right in line with where my mother probably told him to sleep.

  I walked up the grand exterior staircase to the front doors and opened up the security panel on the side of the door. I gave the handle below it a good twenty cranks and then placed my hand in the box. The locking mechanism to the front door released and I walked into the receiving hall.

  After shutting the door behind me, I walked into the first room. It was a grand foyer with marble slab floors and a central table with a large bouquet of flowers, most likely from the hot house located at the back of the property. Candles in sconces lit my way into the deeper recesses of the house. At least it was dry in here.

  I could hear my Uncle call out from down the hall to my right, “Is that you Basil?”

  “It is Uncle Charles. What room are you in?”

  “We are about to sit down to dinner, come into the drawing room child, so I can have a better look at you.”

  I chuckled at his little in joke. Uncle Charles had been blinded in a chemical accident several years ago. He had told me once that he could now see things that no human could see with his augmented mechanical eyes, but he said they still weren’t as good as real ones. Even though his love for science robbed him of his sight, he still dabbled in it enough to publish his findings in a regional quarterly journal.

  Mother stepped out into the hall holding a lantern in her hand. She looked me over once and proclaimed, “It’s her all right, and she is as wet as a drowned rat.”

  So much for the return of the prodigal daughter.

  Chapter 3

  Mr. Colin Townshend

  Rule number sixteen: Don’t worry about what others say about you, worry only about what they think about you, which is always far worse.

  “Go upstairs and change, or you’ll not be served food from this table,” Mother informed me. Her dark hair was heavily streaked with white now, but she didn’t seem to notice. Tonight she had cast it up in a youthful Newport knot. Her makeup was infallible as usual, and her posture was perfect. In comparison, I felt like a drowned rat in her presence.

  “She’s just upset because she was hoping to meet you at the Convent airfield this morning, She felt embarrassed that she couldn’t tell anyone why you weren’t on the dirigible,” my Father told me sitting from an armchair. He then stood, walked over to me, and kissed my forehead. He was dressed in the quintessential pressed black dinner jacket. The automatons certainly had accomplished the skill of the perfect crease.

  I next noted that Mother was wearing black crepe.

  “Who died?”

  “Verna,” she replied flatly.

  Uncle Charles was decked out in a black suit and crêpe armband to match. I rushed forward and hugged him. “Oh! Uncle Charles, I’m so sorry.”

  “It was her time,” he said with a sniffle.

  “Is that what Delia said?” She was Convent’s local Tomb Talker. She wasn’t exceptionally powerful, but if she was able to make contact, her communication was usually succinct.

  “
Too soon for that, she only died last week.”

  I stood back away from him, but he kept hold of my hands. “When is the funeral?”

  “It was three days ago.” Even if I had taken the dirigible here, I wouldn’t have made it in time. At least I hadn’t messed that up.

  Father took my arm and led me to the dining room table. “I’m sure you will have stories to regale us with during dinner.”

  Uncle Charles said, “I think I have found my appetite for the first time since her passing. It is splendid to have you back. I simply needed you to breathe a little life into this mausoleum.”

  “She won’t be staying long though, will you?” Mother asked.

  I bit my tongue inside my mouth and frowned. She was correct. I wasn’t planning on staying very long. “Uncle, you know that I’ll be just a stone’s throw away from here at Grandfather’s cottage.”

  “In order to visit you, I’ll need your help to navigate the Red Forest though,” he said with a wink. “Also, I think we need to start calling it Basil’s cottage from now on.”

  I smiled and said, “I do need to change. Do I still have clothing that I can use in my old room?”

  It was Mother’s turn to frown, and then she said, “They are packed away in some trunks in the attic. I’ll send one of the automatons up for it. You may change in the green bedroom.” I wasn’t surprised that my old room had been repurposed. Then she pulled the rope to summon one of the automatons.

  “I saw lights burning downstairs.”

  “It’s that government fellow. He’s been down there almost a week, awaiting your return,” Mother said quietly, but with a heady enough amount of venom lacing it to make her opinion on the matter crystal clear.