52 Project #12: Mephistopheles (Patreon)

“Mephistopheles is not your name…”
- The Police, Wrapped Around Your Finger

The car jerked to a halt, jolting Alan awake. He opened his eyes to darkness, disoriented. The car reversed, went back, went forward again, and he realized where he was. “We’re there?”

Diana spun the wheel, put the car into reverse again. “Quiet,” she said sharply. There was a frightened tension in her voice.

Alan looked out the window. Though the only light came from a streetlamp across the road, he could see enough to determine that Diana was trying to park, and having a miserable time of it. 500 years old, scholar, mage, and she still doesn’t know how to park a car, he thought blearily, and started at a bulk looming in the rear view window. “Watch out for that truck!” he shouted.

“I told you to be quiet!” she snapped. “That’s as good as it gets. Hurry up out!”

He fumbled his seat belt open, and pulled the door handle. “You want me to get the bags?”

“Alan, for the love of God, just get into the building!”

He was still disoriented, half-asleep, and there was barely enough light to see by. Which building? Some of Diana’s panic communicated itself to him, but it only paralyzed him, and he stood on the sidewalk for several seconds trying to figure out which Diana meant. He turned to ask her, and noticed the car sticking out from the curb at a crazy angle. “What if someone hits the car?” he asked.

She grabbed his arm and dragged him up the steps of a massive shadow. “Do you want to get us both killed?” she hissed, pulling open the door and yanking him into the blackness beyond. “Wake up, Alan!”

Killed? The idea woke him up fast. Diana switched the lights on, and he closed his eyes against the sudden brightness. “Sorry I’m being so slow,” he said, opening them again. They were standing in the center of a foyer, on a shabby pink carpet. Against the wall stood two equally shabby pink chairs. They looked as if they might have been expensive once, maybe forty years ago. To the left he saw a staircase with an ornate but ancient wooden banister; to the right, and at the top of the staircase, two dark, heavy wooden doors with battered gothic carvings on them stood. “Are we safe now?”

“Not yet,” Diana said. “Alan, they were almost on us.” She turned away from him, trembling slightly. In a detached sort of way, he was surprised at her reaction– he hadn’t thought anything could scare Diana.

“And now?” he asked.

“This building is– protected, to some extent. They won’t pinpoint us as quickly here. But we won’t be truly safe until– Alan!!” 

Her cry came before he felt it himself. Then a sickening wave of paralyzing numbness drove vision and speech from him. A haze of dizziness clouded all of his senses, even the position of his body. From somewhere very far away, he heard Diana shout, “Donald, it’s Diana Faust! Release him!”

And then it was over, and the world was normal again. He staggered, more in shock than pain, and Diana caught him. “A spell?” he asked as he straightened up, and she nodded.

On the staircase stood a newcomer, seemingly little more than a boy, though Alan knew better than to go by appearances. The newcomer was short, sallow, and thin, with dark uncombed hair all over his head and mirrored shades hiding his eyes. Alan guessed that this was Donald Ward, the arcana mage they’d come to see. Somehow, he’d expected an ancient sage, or at the very least someone professorial. This man looked somewhere between 16 and 19 years of age.

But then, Diana herself looked like a 22-year-old model, when she was actually older than Shakespeare. 

“Diana,” Ward said wearily. “It’s past two o'clock. What are you doing here?” His voice was unpleasant, high-pitched and nasal with traces of a Brooklyn accent, and very weak. As he spoke, Alan had to fight the urge to cough in sympathy. 

“Emergency.” Diana sounded brusque. “I’ll explain later. Right now, though, I need you to put up a protection sphere.” 

“In the middle of the night?” Ward asked disbelievingly. 

“I’ve been driving since 7 this morning– don’t tell me how tired you are,” Diana said sharply. From her attitude, Alan could see that she was senior to Donald, elder, more powerful, whatever term you wanted to apply to a higher-status mage. “I’ve come to offer you what you need. Put up a protection sphere first.” 

“I haven’t got the energy,” Ward said faintly. Alan could believe it.

Diana opened her pocketbook and drew out a bag full of faintly glowing crushed leaves. She held it toward the staircase. “Free of charge,” she said.

For a second, Ward stood frozen. Then, slowly, he began to move downstairs, never taking his eyes from the bag. “How much is in there?” he asked, hanging onto the banister at the bottom of the stairs.

Diana walked forward and handed the bag to him. “Eight drachms.”

Ward suddenly snatched the package like a hungry animal and ripped it open. By now Alan had recognized it– flos corde, heartflower, the most powerful substance in the arcana universe, an extract of pure energy. “Aren’t you supposed to brew that?” he asked tentatively as Ward crammed the leaves into his mouth.

With the sunglasses, it was hard to discern Ward’s expression, but Alan thought the man was giving him a disgusted look. Diana said, “We’re supposed to brew it. Donald has different needs.” She took his hand and pulled him past Donald Ward, onto the staircase.

“What about the protection sphere?” Alan asked.

“He’s done it already,” Diana said. “I told you. The words of a spell are only a way to focus the mind. Once the mind knows how to make a certain spell, words become superfluous. Ward’s an adept– did you expect him to stand in the lobby and chant ‘Om’?”

She opened the door at the top of the stairs– and they entered a different world.

Donald Ward’s apartment was plants, all plants. They covered the walls, creeping vines and multicolored ivies and thick ropes of blue kudzu. They hung from the ceiling in pots and baskets. They grew thickly in the moist soil that covered the floor. A few graceful fountains burbled among bushes and dwarf trees. Two globes of light hung in midair, about twelve feet from the floor, with no apparent support. The light they gave off was brilliant, like a summer day, and Alan had to shield his eyes– but even when they passed directly under them, he could feel no heat coming from them.

“My God,” Alan said.

“The miracles of an arcana education,” Diana said dryly.

“Where does he live in all this?”

“He doesn’t. He lives over here.”

She led him through the maze of vines, around occasional support pillars and ceramic statues, to an area beyond some bushes, where a raised floor came out of the dirt. On the floor stood a stove, a refrigerator, a table with two chairs, and a couch. The couch and one of the chairs had books piled on them. Here, the walls were nearly devoid of plants, covered instead with shelves and cabinets and odd-looking appliances, but the ceiling was still covered with evil viney growth. It stayed off the walls, mostly, except at the very top, but it dipped down in many places to dangle in loops that could catch a person’s head. A tiny door was nearly hidden between the stove and the refrigerator. The whole room was tremendously cramped and claustrophobic. “I guess he doesn’t do much entertaining,” Alan said.

“Donald is rather uniquely alone.” Diana sat in the empty chair. Alan took the books off the other one and followed suit. 

“I thought you said most arcana live alone,” Alan said. “The ones that don’t form covens.” 

“Stop saying covens. I use the word once, to make a point, and you adopt it. The word is schools.”

“All right, schools,” Alan said. “But if most arcana live alone, why is Ward unique?”

Diana played with a button on her jacket, snapping and unsnapping it. “He’s the only arcana who lives alone and doesn’t want to.” 

Ward came in then, sliding past the shrubbery with the ease of long practice. “All right, Diana,” he said. His voice was very fast now, almost tripping on itself. “What’s the emergency?” He perched on the couch and glanced sideways at Alan. “You’re not usually one for taking in strays.”

Diana pushed fine blond hair out of her eyes, looking up from her button. In the shadiness of the nook, Alan noticed for the first time an unpleasant pink tinge to her eyes, almost a glow. “Let me first tell you what’s in it for you,” she said. “Agree to help me, whatever I say or do, and I’ll cure you.”

Ward stood. “You said two decades ago you couldn’t cure me.” 

Cure him of what? Alan wondered. Ward didn’t look healthy, it was true, but what sort of disease could bring an arcana adept down? Did his devouring the heartflower have something to do with it? 

“One can learn a lot in two decades. Do you agree?”

“What can I lose?”

“They might sanction you.”

“So what? What can they take, my life?” He laughed sharply, without humor, and sat on the table. “What did you get involved in this time, Diana? You’ve never been threatened with sanction in my lifetime.”

Diana put her hands flat on the table and looked directly at Ward. “Several months ago, this young man, Alan Michaels, tracked me down. He’d discovered that I was an arcana, and he wanted to be one too.”

“So you taught him. Where’s the problem? Did he break taboo?” 

“I’m not a certified teacher.”

“What?” Ward slid off the table and stood. “How can you not be certified? You have to be more than 50 decades old, and you must know more than any other arcana I’ve heard of. More even than Marcus. How could you possibly not be certified?”

Diana half-smiled and shrugged. “Too much trouble.”

“WHAT??”

“You heard me quite well, Donald.”

“I heard you, I just don’t believe it. Why not?” 

“My name is Diana Faust.” She stood up, drawing arrogance around her like a cloak. “I didn’t just pick the name at random, Donald. Faust sold his soul to the devil for knowledge. I’ve spent the last forty years studying at various colleges, changing identities, learning all I could. I never wanted to play Mephistopheles. I don’t interact well with people, and my habits force me to take new bodies almost as often as you do. I don’t need students for security or energy or companionship or any of the other reasons ring-bearers teach, and I didn’t want to take the time from my own studies.”

“So why did you go ahead and teach someone anyway?”

“Curiosity, mostly. I wanted to see how it’d come out– an uncontrolled arcana. And I’d found someone who was as desperate to play Faust as I was.”

“What are you talking about?” Donald said, echoing Alan’s thought. “We don’t sell our souls to become arcana.”

“Don’t we?” Diana said softly. Her face became serious. “In any case. What have you decided, Donald? Will you do it?”

Ward sat down on the table again. “Diana, I really would sell my soul to the devil if I thought it would cure me,” he said. “I’ve been to the Frozen World, I’ve been everywhere, and nobody can help me. So you can consider yourself protected. You two can live in the downstairs apartment– it’s smaller than this one, but it’s got two beds–”

“–And no plants. I know,” Diana said. Suddenly she seemed very weary. “You can expect results within the week. Let’s go, Alan.” 

They got the bags out of the car in silence, and Alan parked it up the street, properly this time. Diana had told him that arcana could go for up to 72 hours without getting tired, but after only a day, he could see that she was dead on her feet, her movements dragging and lethargic. Alan didn’t feel much better– sleeping in the car was not the best way to insure a restful night. And they hadn’t ever had a chance to stop– Diana kept saying that if they stopped, the other arcana would find them. After a while, as the need to stretch his legs increased, and as more time passed without any visible signs of the danger they were in, Alan had stopped believing her. 

He had been quickly reconvinced by the attack on the thruway, the one that had left two carfuls of smoking bodies behind them.

Obviously, they weren’t going to be able to unpack everything tonight, but some things needed to be done. As Alan began moving toilet supplies into the tiny bathroom, he asked, “How is Ward sick?” 

“I don’t know if I can explain,” Diana said dully, folding clothes like someone half-asleep. For a moment, Alan thought he should leave her alone– she sounded thoroughly drained. But curiosity won out over politeness.

“You can explain anything,” he said, with forced cheer. “Go ahead.”

“Oh, all right,” she sighed. “I told you that most arcana need to take a new body every twenty to forty years, most always someone who voluntarily exchanges their life for some feat of magic. Our magic is powered by the energy of life, and one body only contains a finite amount. So we make our deals with our clients prime, and grant them whatever they want in return for their lives and bodies. Right?”

She was getting repetitive, perhaps due to her exhaustion. “I know all that,” he said, slightly irritably. He was tired, too. 

“Well, Donald Ward requires a new client prime every three to five years,” Diana said. “His life energy bleeds away too fast for any of his bodies to replenish it. I have an idea about the cause, but it’s too technical for you and I’m too tired to paraphrase it into layman’s language.” She finished putting the clothes away and sat down on the bed. “You may have noticed that when we get tired, or our bodies start to wear out, our eyes turn pink.”

He paused, coat hanger in hand, and looked at her. The room was lit only by windows, and Diana’s back was to them. Alan perceived a definite pinkish glow, defining the hollows in her face that were her eyes. “I see.”

“His are a blinding bright pink, all the time. That’s why he wears those glasses.” Diana yawned and pulled off her shoes. “We’ve done enough work. You get dressed in the bathroom, I’ll stay out here.” 

“All right,” Alan said. He got a sweatsuit out of his suitcase to sleep in, and carried it into the bathroom. Sometimes Diana’s modesty seemed a little bit funny to him. Three years ago, he’d seen her nude often enough– but she’d had a different body back then, and she had been careful to keep their relationship professional since she’d become his teacher.

That was one restriction that bothered Alan. Diana’s slender model’s body was not as much to his tastes as the tiny form she’d worn when they were college students together, but she was still the only woman in his life, had been practically the only person he’d associated with at all for two years, and a man could build up a lot of frustrated desire in that time. He never asked– he knew quite well that she knew his feelings, and that she intended to maintain a teacher-student relationship, free of sexual entanglements, whatever he might want. The thought floated through his head that he could open the door to the bathroom a crack– from this angle, he should be able to see her without her noticing. It wasn’t a serious thought, though. In the first place, it’d be disrespectful, and if she caught him at it, he would be in serious trouble.

Alan leaned on the sink and stared into the mirror. He looked like death warmed over, with stubble on his cheeks, bloodshot eyes, and overlong reddish brown hair flopping every which way over his head and face. But it was his face. That was the hardest thing to get used to– that when he became an arcana, this body would die, and he would have to take another. Morbidly, he tried to imagine it– would it be fat or thin? handsome or ugly? blond or brunet? Maybe it would even be a woman’s body– Diana had been a man more than once, according to her, and she claimed that many arcana no longer cared about the sex of the bodies they acquired. The idea of becoming a woman bothered Alan, though, on the deep levels where the unease could not be purged by rational thought. He didn’t think taking a woman as his first client prime would be a good way to start his career– he should get used to the weirdness of body-switching itself before dealing with the further weirdness of sex-changing.

A cold feeling suddenly burned through Alan. The body he was so casually imagining already belonged to a man somewhere. A man who would have to die for his sake.

He quickly left the bathroom, dragging his dirty clothes with one hand, not caring if Diana was dressed yet or not. He had to talk to her, ask her about the clients prime. Did they really know what they were getting into? Did they really, voluntarily agree to die? What magical favors would be worth dying for? 

But Diana was already asleep, the covers pulled tightly around her body and her head buried in the pillow. Alan turned away and sat down on the other bed, making it sag with his weight. Trust Diana to take the best bed.

Well, that was her prerogative, he supposed. She was the teacher, he the student, and he trusted her completely. She might have lied to him in the past, but never since becoming his teacher. Diana claimed that most human emotion was alien to her, that she had never truly understood or experienced human emotion even in the days when she, too, was bound by human limitations. She further claimed that her sole motive in teaching Alan was curiosity. But Alan was fairly sure that was bullshit. Whether she wanted to admit it, even to herself, or not, Alan knew she really cared for him, somewhere inside. She would never have let him become an arcana if she’d thought it would harm him.

Although he would have found another way even if she’d refused him. Alan was as obsessively curious and as indifferent to the outside world as Diana herself. They were very much alike. For example, he thought of Ward’s comment– “We don’t sell our souls to become arcana–” and of Diana’s ambiguous reply, and knew she felt the same way he did. Even if the price of knowledge had been his soul, he’d have paid it. He was as much Faust as Diana was. She had to care about him, for he cared about her, and fundamentally, he was sure, they were the same.

Alan had first met her as a college student. His parents had recently died, leaving him a large trust fund to continue his education, as well as a monstrous emptiness in his life nothing had been able to fill. He had decided, not entirely consciously, to cut himself off from human contact, to live solely for intellectual pursuits. As a result, he’d become obsessed with the pursuit of knowledge. He’d changed his major for the third time, giving him another two years before he had to graduate, another two years to fill his life with classes and seminars and cultural events instead of facing the fact of his awful loneliness. The only contact with people he’d had was over the Internet, with people he never saw. He hadn’t even looked at women – not as women, anyway. People who were women were all around him, but looking at them as potential sexual partners had been too much work.  

But he’d found it increasingly harder to ignore Diana. Then, she’d been a tiny, wild thing with tangled-briar black hair and gypsy green eyes. He hadn’t known then what she was; all she’d been then was a fellow student, classmate in a philosophy seminar. At first, he’d hardly noticed her body (well, be honest; he’d tried not to notice her body)– it had been her mind, powerful and original and more knowledgeable than anyone else’s, that had attracted him.

They’d become lovers, and he found himself drawn by her more and more, as if she were his only connection to the humanity he’d all but rejected. He clung to her desperately, but never admitted to himself or her how much he needed her. He’d accepted her arrogance and unconscious assumption of superiority because to him, anyone with a mind like that was his superior. Brilliance was the only thing he respected, and he hungrily desired all she could teach him, wanting her knowledge even more than her body.

Then they’d gone their separate ways over the summer, with what Alan had thought was the tacit understanding that they would get back together the next year. Diana had been there three years, and had at least another before she could graduate. There had been every reason to assume she’d return to the same school the next year. 

She hadn’t.

Searching for her, for the reasons why she’d left, Alan had discovered that she was completely gone, erased from the computer banks as if she’d never attended that school. He’d called on all his computer skills, plundered the databases of American colleges– and had found her, in places she could not be. In the past decade, she had attended three schools as an incoming freshman. Her age had been listed as eighteen in each case. Prior to that, he found evidence of her as a graduate student, at multiple schools, going back another twenty years or so before the records went offline and were unavailable to him. Finally, working day and night, he’d found a student named Diana Faust, a freshman at a new university. He’d gone to meet her– and found a tall, slender blonde with a model’s body and Diana’s mind. 

It was then that he’d learned of Diana’s immortality, of her magic powers. He’d begged, cajoled, groveled, and finally persuaded her to teach him, with no understanding of the dangers he faced. Of course, Diana had warned him that if they were discovered she would be sanctioned, that dozens of powerful magicians would try to kill them for breaking the arcana’s most sacred law, but he couldn’t quite believe that. What could be so horrible about teaching without certification?

Now Alan believed it, even if he still didn’t understand why. To the arcana, the concept of “teacher” meant something far different, far older than the usual concept held by ordinary people. “Teacher”, to arcana, held overtones of “master” and “elder” and “parent” and “superior”. The teachers of the arcana formed a sacred elite, and like most sacred elites, they tried to destroy anyone who infringed on their prerogatives.

This whole mess had made him respect Diana even more. She could have cut and run, abandoning him to the others’ fury– she’d told him that his death would absolve her. She could even have killed him herself. But she hadn’t, and Alan loved and admired her for it. Diana might claim to be totally heartless, but Alan knew better. She cared for him– she had to, or she never would have protected him. And she was brilliant. She would find a way to protect them both, forever.

He only wished he knew enough magic to help her.

Alan climbed into bed, exhausted. It was six in the morning– aside from a fitful three hours or so snatched in the car, he had been up for longer than 24 hours. He turned away from the window, toward Diana, and arranged his covers to block out as much light as possible without covering his nose and mouth. 

***

Alan woke with a start. The room was totally dark. 

He fumbled for a light, clumsy with irrational panic at having slept through something important. As he turned on the light, the groggy terror of waking began to pass. How could he possibly have slept through something important? There wasn’t anything that important anymore, not anything that ran on a schedule, at least. It wasn’t like he still went to class or anything.

Diana wasn’t in the other bed.

By itself, that was nothing. Alan was independent enough to take care of himself, he didn’t need Diana holding his hand all the time. But now, coming on top of the fear, her absence had a distinctly sinister flavor. The panic was too great to equal a simple missed class. He felt still as if he had slept through something vital to his survival.

“Trust your hunches,” Diana had said once. “As you grow in power, you will begin to perceive things, understand parts of existence that few mortals comprehend. Mortals have hunches based on half-remembered facts in the subconscious. You’ll start to have hunches based on psychic power. You won’t understand them, they’ll seem irrational, but trust them. They’re your arcana senses, beginning to bud.” 

Analyze. The windows showed only darkness, and it felt very late. But it had been six in the morning when he went to bed. Alan went to his bags and pulled out a clock. For several minutes, he couldn’t comprehend what it was telling him. Then it came clear, and he stared at it in disbelief.

It said 4:00 AM.

He padded out into the threatening shadows of the kitchenette. On the range was a tiny lit clock. It confirmed what the digital had told him. He really had slept nearly twenty-two hours. 

The bedroom felt more secure, so Alan walked back to it, trying to master his irrational desire to run. He had been charmed to sleep, that was certain. He hadn’t been that tired. And, since Diana had no motive for putting him to sleep, that left two choices. Either Ward had done it– or some other arcana had. 

“Oh, shit,” he whispered. “Diana…”

He couldn’t yield to panic. The other arcana were here, he was sure. Either Ward had betrayed them, or his protection sphere hadn’t been enough. That didn’t really matter now. Diana was either dead, or a hostage, or trying to negotiate with her fellows. In any case, he should probably run. People who could kill or capture Diana would eat him for breakfast, and if she were negotiating, he should get out of the enemy’s reach so that he couldn’t be used against her. 

He had already gotten dressed and pocketed the car keys before he realized that he wasn’t going anywhere. It might be stupid, it was probably insane, but he had to find Diana, had to find out what had happened to her. After all, how could he seriously attempt to run from arcana? He didn’t know how to put up a protection sphere, didn’t know how to defend himself from attack. He’d be candy if they wanted him dead.

So he would get some answers before he died. And maybe, just maybe, there was a tiny chance that the few spells he knew could swing the balance in Diana’s favor, especially if Ward were still on their side. Alan chanted the words of a spell of invisibility, knowing it wouldn’t fool any arcana who was looking for him. But if they weren’t looking, the spell might save his life. He felt the spell take effect, warming him, and the shadows of the tiny living room, the glaring empty light of the kitchenette, no longer seemed as threatening. 

Alan stepped out of the apartment. The foyer was dark and silent, and it took all his courage to walk through it to the stairs. But Diana was in Ward’s apartment, he knew without knowing how. If he was going to learn anything, he had to go up there. 

The doorknob of Ward’s apartment was terrifyingly cold, and Alan began to tremble. He thought again of fleeing, bolting down the stairs and out to the car. But he stayed where he was, and finally, silently, turned the knob.

Voices came to him, then. He stood in the doorway, moved a bit deeper into the room, but couldn’t hear clearly enough– all the plant life was muffling the sound. Very slowly, Alan moved forward, making no motion without checking first to see that it would make no noise. There was Diana’s voice, strangely low and calm– of course, if anyone could remain calm in these circumstances it would be Diana. He made out Donald Ward’s voice, but couldn’t hear any others. They’re the only ones, he thought, surprised– he hadn’t thought Ward was powerful enough to defeat Diana.

He moved forward again, until he could see their faces. They weren’t speaking any language he could understand– silently, he cursed himself for not engaging the translation spell. He couldn’t do it here, of course– activating a spell would be like sending up a flare to them. So he remained silent, and waited, watching. It didn’t look like Ward was threatening Diana. As usual, Diana seemed to be explaining something. And gradually, Alan realized he had been wrong. 

Diana wasn’t in danger at all. They were talking shop!

Then why had he been spelled to sleep?

For a moment, doubt froze him. Maybe nobody put him to sleep. He had fallen asleep naturally, after all, and he’d been tired, and under great strain– but 22 hours of natural sleep pushed the boundaries of credibility until they snapped. No, someone had put him to sleep, and the reasons were coming clearer. 

“You could have told me, Diana,” he whispered soundlessly, his lips forming patterns without voice. “You didn’t have to put me out.” She might occasionally want to be alone with someone of her own kind, after all. In comparison to her, Alan was a little child, and Donald was an adult. Even if she’d had a vocation for teaching– and she didn’t– it made sense that she’d want to spend some time with an adult of her own kind. But she didn’t need to put him to sleep, as if he were a baby to be gotten out of the way with a nap. She could have simply asked him to stay downstairs. He’d have been hurt, sure, but not nearly as hurt as he was now.

Angry, and no longer particularly caring if they noticed him anymore, he got up and pushed his way out of the foliage. 

“Alan?” Diana called. 

Let her call. She’d hurt him– he didn’t particularly feel, at the moment, that he had any reason to be considerate of her feelings. He shoved his way toward the door.

“Alan, wait!!”

***

Diana caught up with him on the stairs. “What did you hear?” she asked savagely.

“Enough to know you were right, and I was wrong. You are totally cold. It was a mistake for me to think any differently.” Alan tried to push past her.

She grabbed his shoulders and fixed him with swirling blue eyes, glowing in the darkness. “What did you hear??” she hissed. “Now!”

Frightened, Alan twisted away, trying to hold onto his righteous anger. “I couldn’t understand a damned word of it!” he snarled. “Happy now? Your precious grownup games are safe, the kid didn’t hear. Why don’t you just put me to bed with my bottle and go back upstairs?” 

Diana sighed. “Madonna preserve us from hurt feelings.” Normally Alan found it amusingly incongruous, that an immortal mage should swear by the Catholic religion of her youth 500 years ago, but he wasn’t in any mood to be amused. Diana took his hand and led him down the stairs. “Why were you eavesdropping, Alan?”

“Why did you put me to sleep?” he countered. “Diana, you could have simply told me you wanted to be alone. I trust you not to plan a human sacrifice behind my back– Diana, what’s wrong?”

She had stiffened at the door to their apartment. Now there was a faint tremor in her voice. “Nothing. I’m just– all right, I understand, I hurt your feelings. But there are– important things I needed to talk over with Ward, things regarding his cure, that are too advanced for you. I didn’t want you asking questions I couldn’t answer.”

“You’ve always answered my questions before,” Alan said. “What makes this different?”

“Knowledge can be dangerous,” Diana said, but she said it in a small, almost trembling voice, not the pedantic voice she habitually used. Was she crying? Could she be that affected by his hurt? That hardly seemed like her.

“Diana, what’s wrong?” he asked, concerned. “Something I said upset you.” He thought back. “Was it the comment about human sacrifice? That was really tactless of me, I guess.” After all, how did the arcana survive, but by the sacrifice of others’ lives? “But I didn’t realize it bothered you. You never said–” 

“It has nothing to do with anything you said,” Diana said sharply, but the tremor was still there. “I just– I don’t feel well. Do you know how many spells I had to perform yesterday, how much energy that drained from me?” Her voice had taken on the hard edge of defensive anger. “I’m just tired, that’s all! So could you please leave me alone?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–” 

“Che Dio mi perdoni!” Diana cried suddenly, and ran for the bathroom. Alan listened, but could hear nothing at all. She must have cast a soundproofing spell. 

“Happy now?”

Alan hadn’t heard Ward come in, but somehow he was not too startled. Possibly Diana’s uncharacteristic behavior had used up his quota of surprise for the night. “What do you mean?” he asked, conscious somehow of vulnerability. In this light, Ward’s spindly limbs and mirrored glasses reminded Alan of an insect. “This is between me and Diana.”

“You’re not one to complain about people being nosy,” Ward said. His voice was tired and slow, and Alan had to forcibly remind himself that Ward had taken the heartflower over twenty hours ago. “You must really have some hold on her, if you can make Diana the Ancient show human feeling. How did you get that kind of power?” 

Alan frowned. “What do you mean, that kind of power? Do you think I cast a spell on her or something like that?” 

Ward shook his head slowly, exhaustedly. Alan could not see his eyes, but had a feeling the man was staring at him with hostility. “Don’t be stupid. I know better than that. But if you can make Diana weep…. you have a lot more power than I do.”

“We’re not rivals,” Alan said carefully. “If Diana’s your lover or something–”

“Merciful Lord, no!” Ward laughed harshly. “She’s an elder. And she feels nothing for anyone. Except maybe you. Probably not even you. But if she does feel for you…” 

Ward trailed off and turned on his heel. Alan shouted, “What do you mean? If she feels for me, then what?”

“It could come to war,” Ward said, and slipped out of the apartment, closing the door behind him.

Alan ran after him, but the door was stuck, and by the time he got it open Ward was gone. Damn! Alan hated riddles. He wanted to know the answer, he didn’t want to have to figure it out.

Why would Diana’s caring about Alan lead to war? War between who? A real war, in the outside world? An arcana war? War between Diana and Ward? Alan and Ward? Alan and Diana, for gods’ sakes? What did Ward mean?

Diana was asleep, or doing a good imitation of it, when Alan finally went into the bedroom. He got out her spellbooks, carried them into the kitchen, and began studying the protections against sleep charms.

***

It was two days later before he and Diana were awake and together long enough to talk. By unspoken agreement, the subject of the sleep spell and the eavesdropping had been dropped. Alan hadn’t even told Diana he was practicing against sleep spells; it would have sounded petulant, like a small child’s attempt at revenge. 

“What do you want for breakfast?” he asked.

“Eggs. Scrambled.” She sat at the table in the kitchenette, reading Scientific American. 

Alan got out the materials. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Once you’ve cured Ward, what’s to prevent him from turning us in?” 

“It doesn’t work like that,” Diana said. “In the first place, if you deal with somebody who’s sanctioned, the blow falls on you as well. And in the second place, he’ll be bonded to me, as he would be to a teacher. A student can’t possibly kill his teacher– the two are bonded, and the teacher can end the student’s life at any time. That’s how sanctions are usually dealt with.”

“But then– in your case– don’t you have a teacher?” It was bizarre to think of Diana ever being in his position, ever needing someone to teach her, but she had to have learned the disciplines from someone.

Diana looked up at him with a somewhat quizzical expression. “Actually, that’s a good question,” she said. “My teacher’s dead. That happens, to those of us who’ve been around a long time.” 

“Aren’t you immortal?”

“No. We don’t age– there’s a difference. And our magic usually protects us from mundane accidents. My teacher, Petrius, died in a battle with his rival Huo Tian. Of course I killed Huo Tian shortly afterward– it was my obligation to avenge Petrius, and Huo Tian didn’t have any students of his own, so the pendulum of revenge ended with that final swing. This was shortly after I became an arcana, what– almost 500 years ago. I was Petrius’ first student, and Huo Tian made the mistake of thinking I was inconsequential because I was a woman. Well, he never made that mistake again.” She laughed softly, sounding for the first time like the old woman she really was, reminiscing. “I did grieve for Petrius, but his death set me free. The intricate systems of control that govern our society no longer applied to me, and I was still too young to have been buried under the weight of tradition. Older arcana don’t have anyone to control them, as their teachers usually choose to die after about a thousand years or so, but they’d never dare break from the establishment. Whereas I was young enough to conceive of being a maverick, and free enough to do it. That’s the real reason I never became certified as a teacher, although I didn’t tell Donald. I’m an elder, but the others don’t really trust me. I don’t think they’d ever let me wear the ring.”

“It must be lonely, being a maverick,” he said. “Is that why you agreed to teach me? Besides curiosity.” 

“Maybe, in a way,” she said. She sounded very sad.

“But it hasn’t worked out, has it? I mean, either we live under Ward’s protection all our lives, or we skulk in the shadows for the rest of eternity. Are the other arcana ever going to get off our backs?”

“Someday,” she said, “I had hoped… I would have presented you as a full-fledged arcana, a fait accompli. I don’t think they’d have destroyed you then. It’s only now that you’re vulnerable… But of course, it’s now that they caught us.” 

“They know your habits, your lifestyle,” Alan said. “Are you going to give up everything, just for me?” 

“I’ll think of something,” Diana said, playing with a button on her nightgown.

It sounded to Alan almost as if she had thought of something, and didn’t want to tell him. “Are you sure you haven’t already?” he asked.

“What does that mean?” She looked up at him.

Diana had never lied to him since she became his teacher. “Never mind,” he said, not wanting to accuse her of having started. “Diana– you once said that if I died, you’d be free. What if we faked my death?”

“What then?”

“Send me to another teacher. I’ll use a pseudonym or something. The experiment’s failed, I think you can see that. I could still be an arcana, and you’d be reinstated. The best of all possible worlds.” 

Diana was staring at him. “They’d have a matrix lock on your physical form, since you’re not strong enough to change bodies… but if I rematrixed… Dio mio, se noi egli possiamo…”

“What?” Alan hated it when she slipped into Italian, as he didn’t speak the language. 

Diana got up, shaking her head. “That is an interesting idea,” she said calmly, “but I really can’t discuss it with you now. I have to go talk to Donald about this project.” She abandoned her uncooked breakfast, put on her slippers, and left the apartment. 

Alan watched her go, with something very close to jealousy gnawing at him. Donald, again.

***

He sat with the spellbooks for several hours, sensing the argument upstairs more with his arcana seventh sense than with his ears. He had no idea what it was about, but hoped Diana was winning. 

The door upstairs slammed, and Diana came stalking down. As she entered the apartment, he went to meet her. “Anything wrong?” he asked lightly.

“Shut up,” she said savagely, her voice tenser than it had been even on the morning she’d told them they’d been discovered and had to run.

“Diana, what is it? Is Ward going to betray us?”

“Just shut up!!” She grabbed a few spellbooks off the couch, scooped them up and wheeled for the door. “Don’t follow me!” she shouted as she slammed the door.

Alan stared after her, almost blinded by a surge of rage. What had he done to deserve this? Her argument was with Ward, not him. 

Ward. He was so important that an argument with him destroyed Diana’s relationship with Alan. What could possibly be so important? This wasn’t any minor quibble over a technical detail, that was certain. And anything that affected Diana this much affected Alan as well. He had a right to know what was going on. 

First he spoke the words of a translator spell, so he could understand whatever the language was. Then he placed a sphere of protection about himself, left the apartment, and headed upstairs. 

Ward’s door blocked out the meanings but not the noise. He could hear screaming and shouting inside, far too close by to risk opening the door. Well, he hadn’t trained two years as an arcana for nothing. Diana had told him never to use this spell on calm arcana, because they’d detect it with no trouble. But from the sounds of things, those two wouldn’t know it if all the arcana in the universe zeroed their locator spells in on them at once. Alan spoke a spell to eavesdrop. 

“You go back on this and I’ll personally track you to the Worlds of Darkness!” Ward shouted, close to sobbing. 

“I’m not saying I’ll renege! Just another year!” Diana raged. “I refuse to kill that boy for your sake while there’s another solution!”

Alan froze. That boy?

“In a year I’ll be dead!”

“You’re exaggerating the situation. You can survive indefinitely at your rate of–”

“Damn you, I’m dying now! I took a client twenty weeks ago and already I need a new one! My next client will be my last, can’t you see that? I’m dying!”

“Six months, three months! Long enough to get a new client for you! Donald, I can do it. I just need another person to use as a client prime.”

“What happened to the old one? Did he find out? Go back on his consent? Get fried? Or are you in love with him or something? You’re going to let me die, for the sake of a mortal!”

“He’s not a mortal, he’s a student of the arcana and he never truly made the deal. I had no right to offer him to you!”

No – she can’t mean – but she does, doesn’t she. That’s exactly what she means.

“Yeah, but then your life was at stake. Well, let me tell you this! I offered you protection, wasted my energy, for a bona fide deal. You go back on it, and I’ll tell everyone where you are! Not only that but that you went back on a deal with a fellow arcana! Not only that but you tried to use someone who hadn’t consented as a client prime, on a technicality! Save me now, or God help me I’ll destroy you!”

“You’ll destroy me? Don’t you dare threaten me, child. I’ve killed far more powerful arcana than you!”

“So? What’s my life worth? Is it worth yours, Diana? Are you going to gamble your life that I couldn’t get a burst of mindspeech off to my teacher before I died?” There was silence. “Answer me, Elder! Will you gamble your life on my death?” 

“And if I save you?” She was much quieter.

She was going to accept, Alan realized. She was going to go on with the deal, and kill him. 

Oh God ohgod what am I going to do?

He’d learned that consent was required. The link between arcana and client, that drained the client’s life energy at the completion of a bargain, could only be established by voluntary cooperation by both parties. Just like the bond between teacher and student.. “I will obey all my teacher’s commandments, with my life forfeit if I disobey…” But what if his teacher commanded that he forfeit his life? What could he do? Diana could kill him anywhere. She’d said so herself, the teacher could always kill the student. It would do no good to run. 

If he confronted them with what he knew? They’d kill him. Ward would kill him. He remembered the burning numbness of Ward’s protective spell, when they’d first met, remembered Ward’s hostility and mention of war. Ward would kill Alan rather than let him live to see Ward die. And Diana? What about Diana?

He heard, as if in a fading dream, Diana agree to kill him for Ward’s sake. Then he canceled his spells and went running down the stairs, into the apartment. With a speed born of desperation, he threw clothes into one of the luggage cases. Diana was willing to let him die, to save her own life. Had been all along. She’d been playing with him, lying to him, making him think she loved him despite the obviousness of her callous nature. He hated her for that, and yet… Diana had been arguing for his survival. Did she care about him, Alan, or was it more like a pet that a little girl wanted to keep? Did it even matter, now? If he were a pet to her so be it– anything to stay alive.

He had grown giddy with the exertion. Now, a bag of necessities thrown together, he leaned against the wall of the bedroom, catching his breath. Then Diana came in. 

Alan walked into the living room and stopped her with a hand. 

“I didn’t bargain with you,” he said. “I didn’t make a deal, or offer my life in exchange for knowledge. I’m not Faust, and you’re not Mephistopheles. I might have given my life to be an arcana, to know what you know, if that had been the price you quoted. But it wasn’t, and I didn’t, and I’m not your client prime.”

She stood looking at him for several seconds, her expression blank. “You listened in,” she finally said tonelessly. 

Careful, Alan. Better be careful, if you want to live. “Yes,” he said.

“Then you don’t understand anything,” she said. “Alan, I don’t need your consent.” She walked over and sat down on the couch. “I wear the ring, that’s all I need.”

His mouth was almost too dry to shape the words. “What ring?”

“There isn’t any. It was a metaphor,” she said tiredly. “I don’t wear a literal ring. Only certified teachers do that. The difference between them and me is that they live off their students, take small quantities of life energy from them always. It’s one of the reasons for my power, because I have no one riding on my back, leaching my life into a ring. I have the bond with you, but I take nothing from you.” She corrected herself. “Took nothing from you. That’s why they were out to kill us– because you could have been the most powerful arcana that ever lived, and under no one’s control, not even mine.”

She looked down at the sofa, and began playing with a button. “But I could kill you now as surely as if I wore your life around my finger. I don’t need your consent. That’s what the plan hinged on. Ward’s life is bleeding away, because his soul isn’t fully connected to his body. We planned to matrix your body into a replica of the body he was born with, and fix him in it permanently. That would have stopped the energy bleed, and the next time he took a client prime, it would be as a normal arcana. Since you are my student, I didn’t need your consent for the plan, the way I would have for an ordinary client.” 

“Then why are you talking?” he asked, and was ashamed to hear his voice break. “Get it over with, will you?”

“But I’m not going to kill you.” She looked up at him. “I thought you realized that.”

He expelled a very long breath. “You are heartless, aren’t you?”

“You would have preferred to die?” she asked sharply.

“You lie and act and pretend– it’s all a game with you, isn’t it? First you play with me, to make me think we’ll escape. Then you lie to Ward, and tell him you’ll kill me. Then you act like you’re about to do it, and then you change your mind again. Why are you playing this cat-and-mouse game, Diana?”

She looked back down at the sofa. 

“I trusted you completely, and you would have casually taken my life to reinstate yourself and pay Ward. Now you’re equally as casually planning to betray Ward for my sake. Why? What’s in it for you? How do you expect to manage it, without Ward turning you in? Or is this just another turn of the screw? Are you doing a thesis on the emotional patterns of mortals and arcana who’re close to death?” 

“You could take a new teacher,” Diana said, almost inaudibly. “I’ll tell them that I was pretending to train you, so I could cure Donald. But you died in a car accident, and Donald went back to the Frozen World. It’ll be decades, if ever, before they realize the truth. Donald doesn’t have many friends, and I can concoct a story for his teacher Marcus.”

“But what’ll you do about Donald himself? He won’t take off to the Frozen World just because you tell him to.”

Diana sighed. “You’re being dense,” she said. “Whose body do you think I’ll use to throw them off your trail?”

It took a second to sink in. Then, “You are the most callous individual I’ve ever met.”

“Why do you care?” she asked. “Donald wanted you dead.” 

“That’s not the point. What am I worth to you, that you’ll kill one of your own to protect me? How does this fit in your master plan?” 

“He threatened me. I can’t let him live.” 

“But why did you provoke the situation in the first place? You could have just done it, and I’d never have suspected you, or been able to stop you even if I had. Ward would’ve been in your debt for life. Why didn’t you kill me?”

Diana stood up. “You never learn to leave well enough alone!” she said angrily. “Always questioning, everything I do. Isn’t it enough that you’re going to live? Must you ask why?” 

“Yes! I trusted you before, took your word and your motives for granted, and you nearly killed me. Why have you decided to let me live?”

“Because I don’t want you to die, you idiot!” 

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true. I never wanted to kill you.”

“But you were planning on doing it anyway.”

“I had no alternative! There wasn’t any other way to solve the problem, I thought– I didn’t realize, not until you told me, that there was another way!”

“That’s terribly likely.”

“Alan–” She faced him, swallowing. “I care about you.”

The frightening thing was that he believed her. Another time, he might have gladly died to hear that. Now, if he let himself pay attention to her, there was a good chance he would die. “I don’t believe you,” he said again, as if by saying it he could make it true. “You don’t care about anything but the pursuit of knowledge. You can’t. You’re Faust, remember?”

Alan grabbed his bag, walked out of the apartment and slammed the door behind him. His anger propelled him to the door of the building, which he yanked open as if another second in this building was unbearable to him. But before he could push through the door, something intangible stopped him. Something like an wall he could neither touch nor see, but that he knew was there. He turned, knowing who was blocking him.

Diana stood in the doorway of the apartment. “Do you still want to be an arcana?”

“That’s none of your business. Let me go.” 

“There’s a teacher named Mirelda Jones, living as a high school teacher in Poughkeepsie, New York. She’s in the phone book. Another maverick, but a certified one. She’ll teach you without caring about any of this. Tell her Diana Faust said you need to be awakened as fast as possible, so the other arcana won’t be able to track you down and kill you.”

Alan looked back at her. He wanted with all his heart to go back, to stay under Diana’s protection. But there was Ward– he doubted Ward was dead yet– and all those other arcana. And he knew he could never trust Diana again.

“Thanks,” he said, not particularly graciously, and shoved his way through the door. The intangible barrier didn’t stop him. He was on his own now.

Maybe, if he went to the Jones woman and she made him an arcana, he could find Diana someday. In a hundred years maybe the hurt would be gone. 

He wasn’t going to hold his breath, though.

Alan got into the car with his bag and pulled out.