The stiff night breeze sent the clouds scudding across the face of the moon, obscuring its light. Deep within the derelict cemetery, the only other illumination was the tiny orange-red pinpricks of the two lanterns mounted at the main gate. The twisted branches of yew trees, tossed by the wind, scraped at the bars of the wrought-iron fence.
It was no place, thought Ethelbert Redd, for any proper butler to be spending his time.
Unfortunately, part of a servant’s duty was to cater to the foolish whims of his overbred masters. And when that master was a ten-year-old boy—one, moreover, blessed with magical talent—like Bernard Straccali, then those whims could be very foolish indeed.
“All right,” Bernard said. “This should be perfect. Give me the grimoire, Redd, and light the candles.”
Redd dutifully handed over the musty old book with rusted iron hinges, then set to lighting two black candles. These were not free-standing but set in candle-lamps, with brass holders and glass hurricanes surrounding their length, else they would have been blown out at once by the wind.
The lamps had been Redd’s suggestion. Part of him thought that the wiser course might to have been to not speak up and allow Bernard’s plan to fail before it began, but he knew that the boy would not recognize his own short sight and instead would blame Redd for not anticipating his needs. Red found being bawled out by a bratty child to be even more irritating that prowling a cemetery after midnight.
Once the candles were lit and Bernard had enough light to see by, he opened the grimoire to the page marked by a ribbon bookmark. He studied the page carefully, then took out a sharp clasp-knife from his pocket. Unfolding the knife, he set to cutting the design shown in the grimoire into the earth. It took nearly ten minutes to do, referring back to the illustration repeatedly as he worked. Finally, he straightened up and brushed the dirt from his knees.
“Here, take this.” Bernard handed the book back to Redd. He then took the knife and made a shallow cut across the palm of his left hand, which was probably not the purpose the boy’s father had intended when he gave him the blade.
It was probably highly unsanitary, as well. Redd would have to make doubly sure to see the cut was cleaned and treated once they returned to the Straccali home. More work, he lamented internally.
Bernard clenched his left hand into a fist a couple of times to get the blood flowing, then held it palm-down over the center of the pattern he’d carved. Five drops of blood fell onto the earth before Bernard pulled his hand back and wrapped it in his handkerchief. He put away the knife, then held out his right hand and began to chant. Redd didn’t understand the language, but then again he supposed that Bernard didn’t, either. Over and over the boy recited two lines, like a song lyric, and as he did the lines of the pattern he’d cut into the ground began to glow with a pale blue light. The light grew stronger and stronger, until at last the mix of ritual and Runecraft was completed, dancing figures shining in the air above the Rune.
“Hah! I’ve done it!”
“Excellent. Shall we go home now, then, young sir?”
“What? No, of course not. All I did was create the Rune. Now I have to summon the familiar.”
Redd sighed. He really had known better, but had allowed himself the foolish hope.
“Very well, young sir.”
“Now, watch and be amazed!”
The boy raised his right hand and snapped his fingers loudly, the sound echoing noisily through the churchyard. The Rune seemed to shine more brightly, the wispy figures dancing more vigorously. At first nothing more happened, but then after a minute or so something began to take shape, an outline gaining in definition, until the Rune’s pale light at last died down and left standing in its place the skeleton of a beast.
The thing was a monster, no doubt, and had Redd known less about magic he would have fled in terror as fast as his legs could carry him. The skeleton’s bones were bare and shone white in the faint illumination, held together only by whatever magical force had animated the thing. It stood on four paws, its shoulders as high as the butler’s. Its head was vaguely canine, with an elongated muzzle full of hooked fangs and pale blue flames burning in the sunken pits of its eye sockets. It raised its muzzle to the air and snuffled as if smelling the wind.
Bernard cackled with a maddened glee that proved his fitness for a future career in experimental research.
“Bwa ha ha ha ha! I’ve done it, Redd! I’ve done it!” He rubbed his hands together, grinning madly. “Just wait until that brat Cressidor Blan-Virgine sees this! She thinks she’s so special, with her giant magic dog, but look at mine! I didn’t have to have my mother get it for me, and it’s better!”
“Indeed, young sir?”
“Of course it is! My dog is made from Necromancy, which beats dumb ol’ Sorcery any day! There’ll be no question who’s top dog in this neighborhood after I get—hey, what’s it doing?”
The skeletal beast was, in fact, tearing at the earth with its claws. Given the size of those claws, it made rapid progress, so that Redd felt the garden staff at the Straccali country house would be envious of such a creature during planting season.
“Hey! Hey! What are you doing? Stop that, you!” Bernard protested, but to no avail. The skeletal beast was evidently not properly bound as a familiar, as happened when precocious children used magic they weren’t practiced with, and being just born a moment ago it hadn’t been properly obedience-trained to follow commands.
In a few minutes of relentless digging, the beast had carved out a deep trench in the earth, into which it jumped. There was a further scrabbling noise, and the walls of the hole collapsed in on it, burying the necromantic monster.
“Did…it just bury itself?” Bernard asked, staring at the freshly turned ground.
“That seems likely.” Redd gravely considered the issue. “After all, what is more natural for a dog to do with so many bones?”