Read Online The Quest for Saint Camber by Katherine Kurtz - Free Book Online Page B

of awareness, constantly dipping deeper into that well of vague and even more soul-chilling fears that every man has, that would always resist reason.
    But to counter it, he could feel support all around him: magical bolstering, the likes of which his father had never known—the quick, timid caress of Dhugal’s mind, backed by Duncan’s, and then the more powerful surge of Morgan’s exhortation for courage, as the Deryni duke laid his hand on the back of Kelson’s neck. He could sense Arilan’s mind only sketchily, though what did come through was benign, but even Nigel, all potential and no power as yet, displayed a fierce glow of fortitude that was another source of comfort.
    Heartened, Kelson tipped the cup to taste of the temporary death of mind, barely testing with the tip of his tongue. Unlike his father, he would not really die. Surely he could endure this tempering ordeal, so that his father’s death might not have been in vain.
    The wine was pungent and tart. Arilan had been right about it going sour. It was not yet vinegary, but almost—probably not a Fianna varietal, but it would have been a good vintage red, four years before. He knew his father had approved. He wondered why it had not lasted better.
    Perhaps it was the merasha , he decided, as he ran his tongue across his lips. Perhaps the old merasha had changed it, as it lost its potency. Odd, but the tip of his tongue suddenly felt a little numb. And as he swallowed, the sharp tang of the turning wine left a bitter aftertaste at the back of his tongue—not unexpected, in light of what Arilan had said. He swallowed again and became aware of a faint buzzing that started in his throat and quickly spread to the back of his head.
    â€œDrink it down now,” Morgan murmured, suddenly at his right ear, standing now to rest both hands on his shoulders. “You might as well avoid the worst of the transition. Fast is better, believe me.”
    Kelson might have argued with Arilan, if only because he resented the Deryni bishop’s highhandedness in this entire matter, but not with Morgan. He could feel an unpleasant tingling already extending into his lips and down his arms. He raised the cup again in hands that were fast losing sensation.
    â€œAll of it, in one big gulp,” Morgan urged, as Kelson set it to his lips.
    Kelson managed it in two, almost immediately fighting nausea as the sour wine hit his stomach. But it was not the wine that made him want to retch. He knew that with a cold, gut-cramping fear, triggered by yet another image of his father dying, that would not respond to the rational awareness that he was safe here, among friends. Morgan took the empty goblet before he could drop it, but then all his senses began shutting down and he was alone—more alone than he had ever been, even before he came into his powers.
    His vision began to blur, tunneling down something like the way it did when he was going into trance for a very deep working. Only, instead of letting him focus inward, the tunnel kept closing in, constricting, shutting him off from both outward and inward sensation until he was blind.
    And blind with his powers as well as his eyes. He tried to open his mouth to ask if anyone was still there, but the movement made his stomach churn—though not enough, unfortunately, to heave up what was lying there like a belly full of coals, sending jerky streamers of fire into all his limbs.
    â€œKelson, can you hear me?” a voice said, close in his ear, its sound like the rasp of rusty metal against his raw nerves.
    He managed to nod, but he had to close his eyes to do it—which didn’t matter, since he couldn’t see anyway. A vague, faraway part of him knew his hands were gripping the edge of the table for dear life, his only anchor in the world now inaccessible to him, but what touched his face, clamping his head between, might have been tongs of fire, had he not somehow sensed they