he was forced to rely on his father for patronage. He feigned a passion for invention, and declared that he was studying the sciences and needed equipment to do it. Rogibald thought he was being ridiculous, but he was rather amused by the whole affair. It pleased him to let his son have enough rope to hang himself. No doubt he was waiting for Crake to realise that he was playing a fool’s game, and to come crawling back. To have Crake admit that he was a failure, that Rogibald was right all along - that would be the sweetest prize. So he indulged his son’s ‘hobby’ and watched eagerly for his downfall.
Since Crake was unable to afford accommodation grand enough to suit his needs, his father allowed him to live in a house on the family estate which he shared with his elder brother Condred, and Condred’s wife and daughter. It was a move calculated to humiliate him. The brothers’ disdain for each other was scorching.
Condred was the favoured son, who had followed his father into the family business. He was a straight-laced, strict young man who always acceded to Father’s wishes and always took his side. He had nothing but contempt for his younger brother, whom he regarded as a layabout.
‘I’ll take him under my roof if you ask me to, Father,’ he said, in front of Crake. ‘If only to show him how a respectable family live. Perhaps I can teach him some responsibility.’
Condred’s sanctimonious charity had galled him then, but Crake took some comfort in knowing that Condred regretted the offer now. Condred had envisioned a short stay. Perhaps he thought that Crake would be quickly shamed into moving out and getting a good job. But he’d reckoned without his younger brother’s determination to pursue his quest for knowledge. Once Crake saw the empty wine cellar, he wouldn’t be moved. He could endure anything, if he could have that. It was the perfect sanctum.
More than three years had passed. Three years in which Crake spent all his free time behind the locked door of the wine cellar, underground. Every night he’d come back from work, share an awkward dinner with his disapproving brother and his snooty, dried-up bitch of a wife, then disappear downstairs. Crake would have happily avoided the dinner, but Condred insisted that he was a guest and should eat with the family. It was the proper thing to do, even if all concerned hated it.
How typical of Condred. Cutting off his nose to spite his face, all in the name of etiquette. Moron.
The only thing that made life in the house bearable, apart from his sanctum, was his niece. She was a delightful thing: bright, intelligent, friendly and somehow unstained by the sour attitude of her parents. She was fascinated by her uncle Grayther’s secret experiments, and pestered him daily to show her what new creation he was working on. She was convinced that his sanctum was a wonderland of toys and fascinating machines.
Crake found it a charming idea. He began to buy toys from a local toymaker to give to her, passing them off as his own. Her parents knew what he was doing, and sneered in private, but they didn’t say a word about it to their daughter. She idolised their layabout guest, and Crake loved her in return.
Those three years of studying, experimenting, trial and error, had brought him to this point. He’d learned the basics and applied them. He’d summoned daemons and bid them to his will. He’d thralled objects, made simple communications, even healed wounds and sickness through the Art. He corresponded often with more experienced daemonists and was well thought of by them.
All daemonism was dangerous, and Crake had been very cautious all this time. He’d gone step by tiny step, growing in confidence, never overreaching himself. He knew well the kinds of things that happened to daemonists who attempted procedures beyond their experience. But it was possible to be too cautious. At some point, it was necessary to take the plunge.
The echo chamber was the next step. Echo theory was cutting-edge daemonic science, requiring complex calculations and nerves of steel. With it, a daemonist could reach into realms never before accessed, to pluck strange new daemons from the aether. The old guard, the ancient, fuddy-duddy daemonists, wouldn’t touch it; but Crake couldn’t resist. The old ways had been mapped and explored, but this was new ground, and Crake wanted to be one of the first to the frontier.
Tonight, he was attempting a procedure he’d never tried before. He was going to bring life to the lifeless.
