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Authors: Barbara Hambly
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in the snow. She returned home and made herself a tisane against the migraine’s return. Lying in bed she heard the shutters rattle with new-risen wind. She stepped to the door and smelled the wind: It would be worse long before nightfall.
So she performed her chores and baked bread and carried in wood to last the afternoon and the night. The small tasks brought peace to her, and she tried to put from her mind what Jane would be saying of her—probably had been saying about her for years—behind her back. In the afternoon she climbed the attic steps with a broom and dust rags, to sweep and cleanse it and make it sweet for the drying of herbs. She relit the candles she’d set up four nights ago and, finding that light insufficient, untied the bundle and set another dozen in place: The darkness in the attic had disquieted her.
She no longer had a wizard’s skills, but, she found, something of a wizard’s awareness remained. And there was something about the attic that made her scalp prickle.
She opened another bundle of candles and saw thatfive were missing from it. The number skittered in the back of her mind with a sensation like the scratching of rats, catching at her breath. She lit all that remained of the candles and moved the spare bed out of the way; shifting boxes and sacks, her tiredness dissolved and even the ache in her crooked hands retreated before the dread in her heart. The dust on the trunks and bundles had been disturbed already. Thrusting aside two sacks of barley, she found the ghost of a mark on the floor, rubbed out with rags but not rubbed out enough.
It was a single curving line, ending in a sigil she recognized—a sigil she had never before seen in any of John’s books or the books left her by old Caerdinn. But she recognized it still.
She stood, candle in hand, looking down at it, wondering why she knew it, why the sight of it turned her sick.
Then she understood.
The memory of it was not her own. It had been left in her mind by Amayon when he had inhabited her body and her brain. It was one of dozens—ugly and dirty and disquieting, like fruit parings cached in corners by an unwelcome and uncouth guest.
The line was part of a complex power circle designed for the calling of a demon.
Ian.
The thought smote her like the toll of an iron bell.
Folcalor.
I will not go.
Nausea twisted her—nausea and pity and horror—and she scraped and hurled and tore at the boxes, the firkins, the bundles that had been stacked over the place.
Ian, no! Oh, my son…
She found the fragments of a china bowl, not merely broken but stamped and smashed until the clay waspowder, ground into the scratched planking of the floor. Powdered, too, were bits of black chalk, as if they’d been crushed and ground under a young boy’s boots …
I will not. I will not. I will not.
In the darkest corner she found the five candles.
They were unlit.
He had not completed the rite.
Jenny knelt, holding her hands over her mouth, her breath glittering in the soft amber light that filled the attic.
He had not completed the summons of the demon.
Instead, he had gone downstairs and drunk poison in an effort to silence those demands.
Oh, Ian.
She closed her eyes.
Oh, my son.
The Winterlands’ wind screamed across the thatch.
When morning came, Jenny patiently dug the snow from the doors of the kitchen and the stable, wrapped herself in a sheepskin coat and her thick winter plaids, tied her sheepskin cap over her bald scalp, and set out for Alyn Hold.
It has to be Folcalor
, she thought, as she waded through the drifts on the downhill road through the bog. Gothpys—the demon who had inhabited Ian’s body and heart as Amayon had inhabited hers—was a prisoner behind the Mirror of Isychros. He would not be able to benefit from being summoned even had he had the power to invade Ian’s dreams with the demand.
Folcalor had seduced Caradoc, imprisoned his soul in a jewel, and inhabited his body. He had used the
So she performed her chores and baked bread and carried in wood to last the afternoon and the night. The small tasks brought peace to her, and she tried to put from her mind what Jane would be saying of her—probably had been saying about her for years—behind her back. In the afternoon she climbed the attic steps with a broom and dust rags, to sweep and cleanse it and make it sweet for the drying of herbs. She relit the candles she’d set up four nights ago and, finding that light insufficient, untied the bundle and set another dozen in place: The darkness in the attic had disquieted her.
She no longer had a wizard’s skills, but, she found, something of a wizard’s awareness remained. And there was something about the attic that made her scalp prickle.
She opened another bundle of candles and saw thatfive were missing from it. The number skittered in the back of her mind with a sensation like the scratching of rats, catching at her breath. She lit all that remained of the candles and moved the spare bed out of the way; shifting boxes and sacks, her tiredness dissolved and even the ache in her crooked hands retreated before the dread in her heart. The dust on the trunks and bundles had been disturbed already. Thrusting aside two sacks of barley, she found the ghost of a mark on the floor, rubbed out with rags but not rubbed out enough.
It was a single curving line, ending in a sigil she recognized—a sigil she had never before seen in any of John’s books or the books left her by old Caerdinn. But she recognized it still.
She stood, candle in hand, looking down at it, wondering why she knew it, why the sight of it turned her sick.
Then she understood.
The memory of it was not her own. It had been left in her mind by Amayon when he had inhabited her body and her brain. It was one of dozens—ugly and dirty and disquieting, like fruit parings cached in corners by an unwelcome and uncouth guest.
The line was part of a complex power circle designed for the calling of a demon.
Ian.
The thought smote her like the toll of an iron bell.
Folcalor.
I will not go.
Nausea twisted her—nausea and pity and horror—and she scraped and hurled and tore at the boxes, the firkins, the bundles that had been stacked over the place.
Ian, no! Oh, my son…
She found the fragments of a china bowl, not merely broken but stamped and smashed until the clay waspowder, ground into the scratched planking of the floor. Powdered, too, were bits of black chalk, as if they’d been crushed and ground under a young boy’s boots …
I will not. I will not. I will not.
In the darkest corner she found the five candles.
They were unlit.
He had not completed the rite.
Jenny knelt, holding her hands over her mouth, her breath glittering in the soft amber light that filled the attic.
He had not completed the summons of the demon.
Instead, he had gone downstairs and drunk poison in an effort to silence those demands.
Oh, Ian.
She closed her eyes.
Oh, my son.
The Winterlands’ wind screamed across the thatch.
When morning came, Jenny patiently dug the snow from the doors of the kitchen and the stable, wrapped herself in a sheepskin coat and her thick winter plaids, tied her sheepskin cap over her bald scalp, and set out for Alyn Hold.
It has to be Folcalor
, she thought, as she waded through the drifts on the downhill road through the bog. Gothpys—the demon who had inhabited Ian’s body and heart as Amayon had inhabited hers—was a prisoner behind the Mirror of Isychros. He would not be able to benefit from being summoned even had he had the power to invade Ian’s dreams with the demand.
Folcalor had seduced Caradoc, imprisoned his soul in a jewel, and inhabited his body. He had used the
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