Read Online The House Of Gaian by Anne Bishop - Free Book Online Page B

Inquisitors. Ubel had been his finest warrior, his most trusted assistant in this war against magic and female power. He’d nurtured the hungry, beaten boy he’d found in a stinking alley one summer and had shaped him into an educated man with a great destiny.
    Ubel could no longer be completely trusted, but there was no one else strong enough to lead, to do the things that must be done in order to win the coming war against Sylvalan.
    Perhaps he did drink too much wine, but that hadn’t clouded his thinking or softened his determination to rid the world of witches and the power they wielded. It hadn’t softened his determination to rid the world of magic in all its forms. When the witches were finally destroyed, the Fae and the Small Folk would be destroyed with them. Then men would rule the world as was their right—and the Inquisitors would rule the men.
    Hearing a soft scrabbling coming from the wooden cage in the center of the room, Adolfo walked over to it and lifted a corner of the cloth that covered the cage. The squirrel froze for a moment before dashing for another corner in an attempt to hide.
    Dropping the cloth, he turned to study the old woman.
    Despite what Ubel and the other Inquisitors thought, he had not grown soft and he had not been idle last winter. He had thought, he had studied, he had prepared. But he hadn’t had the one thing he’d needed to try his experiments. He hadn’t had a witch.
    He walked a circle around the cage, murmuring the words of the spell he’d created for just this purpose.
    The protective circle wasn’t meant to keep anything out, it was meant to contain what went in.
    When he was done, he positioned himself slightly behind and to the right of the woman’s chair, then placed his right hand on her shoulder. It gave him an almost erotic pleasure to feel her shudder at his touch.
    He closed his eyes. Breathed slowly, deeply, evenly. And began to draw power out of her, just as he’d drawn power out of the Old Places. He felt her resist, felt her pulling the power back into herself. Calmly, he slapped the side of her head, where the wound from the missing ear was still raw. While she gasped from the pain, he clamped his hand on her shoulder again and sucked her power into himself. Sucked it up and sucked it up ... until he sucked her dry.
    He raised his hand, pointing it at the covered cage. As he released the power, sending it toward the cage like an arrow shot from a bow, he said, “Twist and change. Change and twist. Become what I would make of thee. As I will, so mote it be.“
    The squirrel inside the cage shrieked as the power he unleashed struck it. Shrieked and shrieked ... and then went silent.
    Adolfo lowered his hand. His throat felt parched, his bones felt hollow. He wanted to close the circle and pull the cover off the wooden cage. But power still swirled, trapped within the protective circle. He could wait.
    He looked at the woman. Her head lolled to one side. Drool dribbled from one corner of her mouth.
    With proper care and proper nourishment, she might recover enough to regain some of her power. But not enough to be useful to him. He would give her to the apprentices. One could not learn to use an Inquisitor’s tools without practice.
    Two hours later, Adolfo returned to the room.
    There was no sound from the wooden cage.
    He spent several minutes trying to sense any lingering power from the spell he’d cast. There was none.
    Even the power he’d used to create the protective circle had been absorbed.
    Gingerly taking hold of a corner of the cloth, he stepped back as he pulled the cloth away. Then he studied what was inside the cage.
    When his men used the Inquisitor’s Gift to draw magic from an Old Place and release it again to twist the things it touched, there was no control over what was changed. It might cause a new well to go dry, or a cow might birth a two-headed calf, or a field of grain might whither and die overnight... or something living might