Elemental by Steven Savile Read Free Book Online

railing and yelling—could persuade the villagers to help him. None of them was prepared to come and work as his servant, at even the highest pay. Rather they fled away, took refuge in the hills until he had departed.
    Increasingly reclusive, Macbeth devoted himself to gathering together and reading the world’s many books. Word spread of this mysterious hermit-laird (though by now most people had forgotten his name) who paid handsomely in gold for any book of curious lore or magical promise. Book traders made their way to the castle, pocketed their fees, and hurried away again, glad to be gone. When Macbeth’s gold was exhausted, he strode out into the larger world and ransacked and robbed and extorted until his fortune was restored. He hoped, by accumulating the world’s largest library of magical arcana, and by decades of dedicated study, to master the same supernatural skills that the witches themselves had possessed. Why should he track down those wild women
and beg them for favors, when he could command the magic himself?
    But no matter how much he studied and practiced, he could not develop magical ability.
    More than this, he realized that the charm had changed him. He decided to found a dynasty, reasoning that even if his children grew old and died he could still live as patriarch over his own grandchild, great-grandchildren, more distant descendents yet and on into the abyss of future time. He could persuade no woman willingly to marry him of course, but it was a simple matter to abduct likely looking specimens from the locality. But no matter how long he kept them, and no matter what he did, not one of them became pregnant with his offspring. He realized that whatever it was that was acting upon his body to preserve it from death and harm was also preventing him from fathering children.
    At this he fell into a depression for several decades; barely moving from his chamber, letting his hair and beard and nails grow to prodigious lengths. He attempted to kill himself—an honorable, warrior’s death, falling on his own sword like Mark Anthony. But he was himself born of woman, and incapable of harming himself.
    After that he did various things. He spent much of the thirteenth century traveling the world; first as an anonymous foot soldier of the crusades, and thereafter as a curious tourist walking and riding to Cathay, to Siberia, over the ice to Alaska, and across the great plains of the New World. If I were to detail his adventures, this story would stretch through thousands of pages, and marvelous though the adventures were, they would come to seem tedious to you. He roamed through Central and South America, and finally traveled back to Europe on one of Cortez’s ships. Bored of travel, he made his way back to Scotland. Once again his castle had been occupied, but he disposed of the family living there and retook possession.
    For a decade or so this reinstallation in his own home provided him with various distractions. Enraged villagers, and later religiously devout armies, came to destroy him—now once again infamous (after many decades of anonymity) far and wide as a devil in human form, a warlock
who had sold his soul to the devil, and many like phrases. They burned his castle around him, but the flames did not bother him. Instead he walked amongst them bringing death with his sword. Eventually they fled. They always fled eventually. It took Macbeth a decade to rebuild Dunsinane, working entirely by himself, but he found he quite enjoyed the work.
    In the year 1666 he became intrigued by the idea that the world might be about to end. Traveling preachers assured the world that the apocalypse promised by Saint John was imminent. Would his charm survive the end of the world? He thought about this a great deal and decided it would not. He had come to the conclusion that the operative part of his charm—the “none of woman born shall harm Macbeth”—was the woman. Mary,