12. Sam Fundamentals of the Spirit Realm #2
The Embalmer left the study and paced the dark hallways, the walls loaded with paintings and artwork acquired from the dead, all the way down to his cellar, where his other work waited.
The cellar had no windows, and he lit the lamps one by one with indulgent ceremony.
As the room brightened, its contents came into view.
A sheeted shape lay on a marble slab in the center of the room.
On a broad wooden table, beneath the brightest lights, lay the Cisneros Steel.
The Embalmer carefully removed his rings and placed them in a silver bowl.
His aspect didn’t change at all; he didn’t squander tokens on his appearance.
Then he opened the armor, which fastened up the sides, and unfolded it outward like the covers of a book.
Now the inside of the armor lay face up on the table, and the Embalmer could see the small, ingenious clips that secured pieces of bone to each scale of the armor.
The enchantments conducted on the night of the party had been enough to exhaust the bones of the Cisneros Steel, and now only small fragments remained here and there.
Patiently, sometimes using his hands and sometimes using tweezers, the Embalmer removed the few pieces left.
Now he was ready to supply the Cisneros Steel with new bone. Straightening up, he walked over to the marble slab. There he pulled aside the sheet, exposing a pale human figure. He selected instruments from a drawer beneath the marble slab. Then the Embalmer rolled up his sleeves and began his work.
I didn’t stay to watch.
I drifted slowly through the woods, letting my eyes and attention wander, comforted by the innocent activities of the forest’s inhuman creatures: a squirrel bounding across the oaks, a pair of ravens cawing irritably, a deer raising its beautiful neck to stare straight at me.
They restored my humor, and I moved more quickly through the woods and north, to Commonwealth.
By the time I returned to the Brig that evening, Quinn was sitting at his desk, wearing a fresh shirt and the absurd helmet, reading Introduction to Medical Enchantment with his usual unbending diligence, as if nothing had happened.
The following morning Quinn’s humor was not in the least bit dampened by the inconvenience of an injured back.
He attended Access to the Spirit Realm and Advanced Appraisal with his customary keenness.
The former was taught by the rather flighty Professor Mosser, who was given to long tangents about his travels around the globe.
And the latter was taught by the mirthless Professor Pound, a man who rarely practiced any actual enchantment but calculated dead worth a dozen times a day just for the pleasure of it.
Quinn left the class elated, and he then spent the rest of the day working on the sheaf of papers given to him by Professor Throckmorton: a bundle of notes, written in a tiny hand, apparently exalting the use of brass hinges in the lead cases used for spirit bindings.
He stayed up late, hunched over his work—to the great detriment of his back, which at one point began, revoltingly, to bleed through his shirt.
I sent him a gentle admonition, and then a stronger one when he ignored me.
He put down his pen. “I’m busy,” he said aloud, in a tone edged with annoyance.
I was surprised that he had spoken to me, but I did not stop pestering.
I could not tell him in so many words that his back was bleeding, but I could push a sense of disquiet upon him.
He got up impatiently, and as he did so, he must have felt the shirt sticking to his back.
Looking in the mirror, he frowned. “Oh,” he acknowledged.
“It can’t be helped. I’ll change the bandages tomorrow.
” He sat back down at the desk and kept working—until four in the morning, when he finished the document.
Without even bothering to remove the shirt, he fell asleep face down on the bed.
On Wednesday he arrived at Throckmorton’s office at ten, well before his afternoon class and apparently rebandaged.
Throckmorton sat at his desk, wearing the same beret and the same tweed jacket; it was as though he hadn’t moved since Monday.
The spirit thew, however, had been busy.
She had cleared a space before the desk, managing to tidy the labyrinth of armor and books into something more resembling a storeroom than a scrap heap, and she had conjured a fully serviceable stool from deep in the pile.
As Quinn entered the room, Livia gestured at the stool.
“Please,” she said quietly, “have a seat.”
“Thank you,” Quinn replied, nodding.
Hearing their exchange, Throckmorton looked up from his desk and removed his spectacles. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “Olney proved too much for you, has he?”
“Oh, not at all!” Quinn smiled as he sat on the stool.
“I quite enjoyed it. I’ve finished the transcription, and I hope you will let me know if my handwriting is legible enough.
I do, of course, have many questions!” Livia had come close to him, and Quinn now handed her two bundles of paper.
“Here’s the original and here’s the transcription.
” Livia held the former to her chest and gave the latter to Throckmorton.
She drifted back behind the professor’s chair.
“Good, very good,” Throckmorton muttered, clearly surprised, looking over the pages. “This is quite legible indeed. Brass, eh? I’ve not been much inclined to brass, but perhaps Olney will change my mind.”
“I believe he only recommends brass for the hinges, Professor. Not for the receptacle itself.”
“Indeed, indeed,” Throckmorton said absently, skimming the pages with interest.
“Professor, since Olney is writing for specialists, he doesn’t bother to explain how the receptacle actually works. But I’m not entirely sure I understand it. How does the spirit’s ‘shroud,’ as he describes it, fit inside a lead box? The drawing is of a tiny thing, no more than four inches long.”
Throckmorton placed the papers down on the desk.
“Well.” He cleared his throat. “The spirit’s shroud is like a casing, soft and pliable.
Imagine a gauzy veil of sizable proportions that can be compressed into something quite small.
It’s drawn from the spirit in the moment before spirit and enchanter pass back through the portal into the living world.
It is the lead box that keeps the shroud safe.
And why lead? Well. For reasons no enchanter has satisfactorily explained, thews are unable to manipulate lead. ”
“But how does the receptacle work? Is holding it sufficient to command the thew? If another enchanter takes the receptacle away, does that make him able to control her?”
“No, no, no.” Throckmorton shook his head energetically, his wisps of white hair fluttering wildly. “Placing the shroud into the receptacle in the spirit realm is what binds the spirit.”
“So the thew is bound to a single enchanter forever.” Quinn didn’t look at Throckmorton’s spirit thew, but Livia shifted at this pronouncement, a movement cut short by restraint.
“Not forever, not at all. I could send Livia back to the spirit realm today. I have only to give her back the shroud in the spirit realm. But, admittedly, very few enchanters have ever done that. I can’t think of a single one.
” He scratched his nose with a long fingernail speculatively.
“No, not a one. What commonly occurs is that the enchanter dies, and then his heir takes the shroud to a nearby portal and binds it to himself. That is how a thew becomes a family inheritance—a legacy thew. What I have heard,” Throckmorton said with an air of grave disapproval, “is that some unforgivably irresponsible enchanters manage to lose the shroud or hide it so well that when they die no one can find it.”