Hildigrim’s grave. It had been months since his last visit, and even then, he hadn’t lingered. He had nothing left to say that hadn’t been said, other than “you son of a bitch,” and the timeworn, “I miss you.” It was conventional to drop a few flowers and stare silently at the grave, as if waiting for time to run backwards and the body to sprout anew. But no one ever returned from dead, as a thousand years of graveyards attested. Tombstones were our pathetic attempt to woo them back, but they were love letters in a forgotten language. The dead watched (if they noticed at all) without comment.
Of course, he hadn’t come to pay his respects. He came for the spell. Hildigrim didn’t have the heart to destroy it completely, but asked that it be buried with him to keep it safe. Should you need it, merely come to my grave and whisper the words, he told him. But only do so as a last resort, and not to satisfy your idle curiosity or the whims of the Council.
Did this qualify? Since Sonya Vasilyevna arrest, she was no longer of the Council (in a sense), and he had exhausted every other means of dodging his new-found duties. Yet he understood Hildigrim’s hesitation. The spell could not be undertaken lightly. Even now, he remembered the long weeks his master had spent writing it, dreaming about it, doubting it should have ever been written in the first place. Turold remembered his own enthusiasm in response to these fears, exclaiming, “if not you it will be someone else. Think of the insult! You were so close, and you abandoned it out of fear of what might-have-been! The next sorcerer will have no compunctions about writing it down, and your name will be forgotten, while his will forever be mentioned as the first.”
Hildigrim took the bait, finishing it a week later and even asking Turold to name it, having come up with—and rejected—a dozen titles. Turold’s first suggestion was “The Shadow-Familiar,” suggested by a gothic novel that had once terrified him. Hildigrim took to it immediately, as the spell was rather gothic. Once cast, the spell breathed life into your shadow until its appearance was indistinguishable from your own. As the days passed, it gained knowledge, character, and curiosity. Before long it could mimic your voice and thoughts (to a degree), and go about your daily business as competently as you could. Or more competently, in Hildigrim’s case, since it never dawdled and had an absolute aversion to chit-chat.
Hildigrim’s double differed from its original in another important respect: it never smiled. It would sit sullenly in the corner until called for, and then do its business without enthusiasm for as long as necessary. It would even thank him in a manner Turold associated with brushing off flies; coldly, as if he was the latest nuisance in a world of bother. In all respects it seemed the perfect servant (or slave) if not for a strange habit it picked up that became a character trait.
It liked to go missing. And one day, it never came back. Hildigrim sent him on a trivial errand, to fetch some manuscripts from a colleague across town, while he had dinner with an unnamed lady of his acquaintance (Turold never learned who it was). Imagine his surprise when, in the middle of the third course, a servant informed him that Hildigrim Blackbeard had murdered one Signor von Riis in cold blood, leaping out a third-floor window to escape. He was now at-large and considered extremely dangerous, and all attempts should be made to report his whereabouts and apprehend him if possible.
Hildigrim turned himself in that very evening, saying nothing of course about the double; to do so would deliver decades’ worth of research into the hands of his rivals (Lord Gramsteed, for one). His only alibi was the mysterious woman who refused to come forward, and for whatever reason, Hildigrim protected her identity and made no mention of her, claiming he was eating alone when he heard the news. Other witnesses claimed they saw him leap out the window, or someone who looked just like him; he moved very fast and it was already past dark.
The trial lasted for days and The Council sat in grave judgment as the details poured out, growing with accusation and embellishment as the witnesses came forward. The motive was never clearly established, though someone claimed that the manuscripts weren’t his to retrieve, being originally the work of Signor von Riis. The manner of his demise seemed particularly gruesome: Hildigrim throttled the astrologer before bashing his head against a table. It didn’t help matters that Hildigrim offered little defense other than being “very sleepy” that night and “unsure” if he had ever met Signor von Riis two years previously.
One by one the Council delivered their verdict: guilty on all counts, censured in the highest degree. He still remembered the blankness of each judge’s face, not excepting Sonya Vasilyevna, who avoided his eyes. Turold had assumed his master would be sent into exile, or even allowed to remain, so long as he relinquished his staff and spellbooks. Instead, they had demanded the ultimate price, in accordance with the oldest laws: to take his own life. The audience fell into a profound, unearthly silence. Even Hildigrim had to catch his breath.
Naturally, many people, Turold among them, begged him to flee the country and defy the Council’s degree. He flatly refused. If they wanted his life, so be it; at least this way he could choose his own death, down to the very hour that his breath went cold.
“But what of him?” Turold had asked him, during their final meeting. “Shouldn’t you call him back? If they could see it, they would understand—-they would have to commute your sentence!”
“There’s no reason to call him back,” he said, with a shake of his head. “And I only have myself to blame for his instincts. Everything I hated, he knew, it was part of his bones. But unlike me, hatred wasn’t enough; he wanted to act.”
“You hated Signor von Riis? Who was he?”
“That’s a long story—too long for a deathbed confession,” he said, patting his cheek. “Suffice to say that my shadow knew, and it wanted to kill him, as much for me as for himself. And he also knew…I didn’t want him to return. I told him to fly, to go with my blessing.”
“To fly? That thing! For what reason?” Turold asked, horrified.
“I wanted something, or in this case, someone, to survive me. I was too selfish to marry and have children. Even too selfish to properly take care of you.”
“Now master, I never—”
“Call it foolish if you will, it makes no difference. Just remember, the spell is hidden, but not forgotten. You alone know its secret. If the day comes that you require it, speak the words and take the burden upon yourself. That’s all I ask.”
So now he had come, though whether he was ready to take on the burden was another story. He tried to imagine his own shadow-familiar walking the earth, another four-foot magician with its own thoughts and desires. Or, as Hildigrim warned him, his own. It would know everything he did, or as much as he revealed in private. All his fears, his petty jealousies, his betrayals. What would stop the familiar from doing what he never could and seeking its bloody revenge?
Questions for another day. Leaning over the tomb, and with a quick look on all sides, he whispered the secret invocation. The sound of the words gave him gooseflesh and brought back the way he used to feel about magic, when casting a spell was as holy as the glimmer of icicles in moonlight.
Nothing. Turold crept closer and touched the tombstone itself, hoping to feel the presence within. If he had to, he could dig up the grave and—the gods preserve him—defile the corpse itself. A few more times, just to be sure. The old words still had power, and should reach through the ancient roots and awake the hidden spell. Listen!
The tombstone shifted. He stepped back, almost tumbled into the bush behind him. Another shift, then a crack splintering the dirt asunder. He willed himself forward, repeating the words once more to give it strength…
A mottled hand burst through the soil, fist clenched around a yellowing scroll. The spell. A few more words and the hand opened, letting the parchment drop to earth. Turold quickly took the pages–which were still legible, despite their condition–and tucked them away in his purse. As he watched, the hand opened, almost in a gesture of greeting…then crumbled into lifeless dust.
Slowly, the earth mended and the tombstone shifted backwards, though remained askew. Turold gasped for breath, felt the world spinning beneath him. This was the closest he had come to seeing Hildigrim since his death. True, it was just his hand, or what was left of it, but it had still been him; it was still the hand that occasionally picked him up, that often smacked him for not paying attention.
He recognized each finger as clearly as he knew his mother’s voice. It was him. Clutching the purse against his chest, he wept silently, unable to move until the moment passed.
