"Actually, we don't have to study, do we?" you say softly, and draw up close to Joe. You put your arms about him, rubbing the hard muscles beneath his sleeveless sweatshirt. "In fact, I was pretty sure you meant something else by 'private lessons' when you mentioned them."
He groans and closes his eyes, and you can feel the organ twitching through his pants. You put your lips to his, and he tentatively returns your kiss. He resists, but not strongly, as you draw him back to an old gym mat spread on the floor and pull him to the ground. "I'll do the work," you whisper, pushing him onto his back. His nostrils twitch, and his eyes wander in their sockets. You kiss him long and probingly until he relaxes.
Then you sit up and slap the mind band onto his forehead.
You don't know what you want to happen. It would be bad if it really is Joe, but maybe you can explain your actions after you've retrieved the band.
But the band doesn't disappear. Instead, it just sits on his forehead, hissing softly. His back arches, and he freezes.
Shit. That means it's sitting on a mask--there is a golem, or worse, beneath his visage. With infinite loathing, you remove the band, then put your hand to his brow, murmur some arcane words, and tug. The mask comes away, revealing another face beneath.
A terrible confirmation: It's Blackwell.
You stare down at him, your breath coming in quick pants. You should get Frank out here fast, but the magician will wake long before reinforcements come. There nothing you can use to bind him. You can lock him in the basement, though, and if you take the mask he won't be able to disguise himself again.
As you turn toward the stairs, though, your eye falls upon the Joe-mask in your hand, and you stop.
Its interior has been golemized.
You frown, for this strikes you as unusual: If it is golemized to Blackwell's control, he can wear it himself without danger. But why would he golemize it if he was just going to wear Joe's form?
While you are dimly puzzling this over Blackwell groans, then sits up violently onto his elbows. Your foot is on the bottom step as your eyes lock with his.
His mouth twists as he takes in you and the mask and the basement. "And what new comedy have you planned for me now?" he asks in a tone that combines acidity and hopelessness. He winces and unbuttons Joe's cargo pants, which his prodigious gut overflows.
"Just wait here," you snap, "until I get back with Frank."
He gapes, and you're at the top of the stairs before he can cry out. "Wait! Stop! You're not Durras?" He stretches a hand toward you. "Who are you?"
"Your old acolyte, professor." At your retort, he takes a sharp breath. "I don't know how you got Joe out of the way and stole his imago, but I bet Frank will be able to get the story out of you."
"Prescott! Will! I beg you," he cries. "We are both of us in grave danger! If you fetch that young giant our lives will be very short. He will kill us, both of us. Or worse." He tries to sit up, but the clothes are far too tight, and he just sprawls on the mat like a great walrus.
There seems no great danger in him in his current state, so you pause with your hand on the door.
"I've been such a fool," he groans. "I should have seen it, I almost did, but too late."
"Stop stalling," you snap. "I'm going to count to ten, and if you haven't said something that makes sense by then, I'm out this door and calling Frank. One, two--"
He rolls over and begins speaking very quickly. "He's not who he seems to be. He's--" He swallows.
"Four, five--"
"He has an anima band upon him."
"A what kind of band?"
"Anima. It's the essential aspect of a person that--"
"I know what it is, professor. Okay, you have my attention. What's the story?"
He takes a deep breath. "I caught him when he came out to my house. I set a trap--my suspicions were alerted by the disappearance of the Libra--and he walked into it. I had a blank mask, so I used it to copy him while he was unconscious. I filled it with a golem shell that put it under my control and placed it back on him. With his own words he told me everything."
"You're stalling again. Six, seven--"
"Then I put an anima band on him," he says hurriedly, "after I caught the other one, his so-called brother. But I hadn't time to get them fully out of the way, not the way I'd have preferred."
"Nine."
"So I put an anima band on the Malacandran. One of my own. I thought if I made him into my own psychological twin, that would keep him safe. He would be a partner, someone who would work with me."
You grip the doorknob but don't turn it. "And what happened then?"
He groans. "Our partnership went splendidly at first, after we got you into Miss Cindy and sent you on your way. But he was ... argumentative. I wasn't used to dealing with an equal. More than an equal, I see now in retrospect. But he was clever and kept his own counsel. When he saw his chance, he trapped me."
"What are you talking about?"
"I said, he trapped me. In that mask, of his so-called brother." He points to your hand. "I was in that mask by then, for he had the better brain. But the next afternoon-- What day is this?" You don't answer. "He called me out to my own house, to prepare for your first lesson in the secrets of the Libra. But once I was there he told me I'd been very foolish. I'd made a phone call, and had put you on your guard. He put me in some kind of grip, stripped me of the mask, and while I watched he set a golem shell within it, to put it under his own control." He hiccups. "He told me I was a poor excuse for a magician, that in his body he make be a far superior Aubrey Blackwell."
"You're saying ... You're saying that he thinks he's ... you?"
"Of course! That's what an anima band does, it copies the sense of identity! He is the real Braccioforte--or Frank Durras, as he's calling himself. He even knows who he really is. But he thinks of himself as--"
The magician gasps for air. "He thinks of himself as me!"
You stare, unable to say anything. Blackwell brushes his forehead with the back of his hand, and you're startled to see that he has begun to weep. "I would have done the same thing in his place," he says. "In his place, if I'd found myself in that body, in possession of that kind of power--" A shudder passes through him, and his voice breaks. "I certainly would have gotten rid of the 'fat old fool' who was trying to work with him. That is what he intended to do, after using me as a peg he could hang his brother's enslaved face upon."
Your hand falls numbly to your side. This performance--if performance it is--is so perfect it is indistinguishable from absolute truth-telling. "But what is he trying to do? He's a member of the Stellae, how could he do this?"
"Haven't you heard a word I've said?" Blackwell explodes. "He is under the influence of my anima. He thinks he is me, so he's doing what I would do in his place. Which--" Again he shudders, and his face turns very chalky. "Which is very loathsome in a variety of ways."
"Then why would he double-cross you?"
"As the frog asked the scorpion," Blackwell says bitterly. "It is his nature. Mine. I told you once, or thought I did, that magicians are jealous and do not share their secrets willingly without hope of great profit. I didn't see the terrible risk I was taking. I was--" He is trembling so hard now he seems in danger of liquefying. "I was arrogant enough to think that we would reason and act in perfect concert, like one mind in two bodies. But he had the advantage, all that he could want, so he took it."
Your eye turns inward. You've not made a great study of anima, but what Blackwell says gibes with what you've learned. Blackwell's explanation also clears up certain mysteries. How both the Durrases could have been gotten out of the way, and why Frank could still exercise the powers of a Stellae while not quite being himself any longer. Why the Prescott golem claimed that Blackwell was still alive, but could resist both Joe and Frank in the library: by then Blackwell himself had been hidden beneath a golem shell and unable to exercise any influence.
"So what does Frank plan to do?" you ask.
You're not pleased to see Blackwell acquire a characteristically furtive look. "I can't say for sure," he says. "Acquire a mastery of the Libra, with your help. That was my plan. What he means to do with it afterward--" His brow becomes troubled. "I'm sorry, Will, but being outside that mask means I don't remember much about the Stellae anymore."
"We can put it back on you," you say with grim amusement.
He rears back. "Don't be a fool. I would disappear, the golem would summon his brother, and you'd be made short work of."
"Well, what are we going to do, then? Joe can't just disappear without making Frank suspicious."
"You have to find me another hiding place. My lifespan will be measured in seconds if Durras finds me outside that mask."
You chew your lip. You have a blank mask in your satchel, and you could use it to get him a new face. But you're far from sure you can trust him. If you got the mask back on him, you could probably talk your way through the re-emergent Joe's suspicions. But you could use Blackwell's counsel.
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