Raising Kane (© Biswapriya Purkayastha)
Page 1 One day I decided I really must raise a ghost for real. "What’s the use of that?" my familiar asked me, growling up
from the tangle of matted black fur that served him for a face. "You can’t even
do simple things after all." "Shut up," I told him. Being a familiar, the words had no
effect on him. They didn’t even make his jaws freeze up. "I’m a Grade B warlock
of the First Order," I reminded him. "I can do anything but raise demons from
the Fifteenth Hell and below." He snorted. "Do you remember the werewolf?" "What werewolf?" I had no memory of any werewolf. "That guy you converted into a werewolf, long distance, so
he would kill that other character you’d been paid to slay, the one he was
meeting in his private study. Don’t you remember?" "Oh...that werewolf." I was about to change the topic
but he wasn’t having any of that. "That didn’t turn out quite as expected, did
it now?" he asked. "It wasn’t my fault," I began. "You see..." "All he did was stumble and fall downstairs and nearly break
his neck," he went on mercilessly. "And the shock made him revert to human form
anyway." "Well," I argued, "how could I have known that the man was
almost blind and needed such powerful glasses? Naturally when he changed they
just fell off his head, so he couldn’t see a thing. That wasn’t my fault!" "And the other time, when that poultry farmer asked you to
create a spell to increase the size of the eggs his birds were laying? How
about that?" "Well..." "You turned all his chickens to ostriches, didn’t you?" "He wanted big eggs," I said truculently. "He got
big eggs." "You know someone who likes to eat ostrich eggs?" "Anyway," I said, "I want to raise a ghost, and you’d better
help." "Any ghost in particular, or will just any ghost do?" "Well, uh, for this first time, any ghost. Later we’ll try
and be more particular." "You are going to make a mess of it," he said, grinning with
all his huge battery of sharp teeth. "A stupendous mess, even by your
standards." "Are you going to help me or not?" "Oh," he said, combing his fur with his huge hooked claws,
"I’ll help. I’m interested in seeing just what kind of mess you make." "I’m not going to make a mess." I ordered him to get the
some of the materials ready while I got the rest. He scuttled away on his seven
long limbs, and in a short space of time was back with the four black candles
of mammoth tallow I needed, set in the candelabrum of Solomonian silver, design
Warlock’s Standard. This he set in my bowl of the Water of Lethe. "The water’s going stale," he said. "You really ought to
change it." "I have so much to do," I muttered. I was rummaging in my
cupboard of ingredients, putting packets and bottles on the table. "Where the
devil is my powdered unicorn horn?" I asked. "Don’t you remember? We used the last of it when you tried
to help that crooked contractor beat his deadline for construction of that
skyscraper. And you recall what happened then." "He told me he needed it finished," I snapped. "I got it
finished by the date mentioned. It’s his problem that I had to stretch the
rooms to get to the height he needed, not mine. I...forget it. Where can we get
some unicorn horn in a hurry?" "Where? Nowhere. Unicorns no longer exist, or had you
forgotten? They died out when there were no longer any virgins left to bridle
them." "But I need unicorn horn!" "Get cow horn." He emitted a weary sigh, along with the
usual greenish gas and darts of flickering flame. "It hardly matters either
way. Horn is horn." "Don’t I feed you enough?" I asked. "Your suggestions lately
have been less and less useful." [ Continue to page 2 ] |