The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [158]
“I know that he’ll tire of me—”
“That’s not what I meant. In time Bellyra’s good sense will reassert itself, and she’ll forgive you.”
“I hope so, my lord. She was so good to me, and now she hates me.”
“Well, I’m hoping that will pass, too. She’s terrified, Lilli, because she’s with child, and she’s sure the same old madness will come over her. Her fear colours everything.”
“Will it happen again, the madness, I mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I’ll pray it doesn’t.”
“That’s all any of us can do, alas.”
When they reached his chamber, Lilli hung her cloak on a peg in the wall, then took Nevyn’s and hung it next to hers while he heaped charcoal into the brazier. When he snapped his fingers, Wildfolk of Fire appeared and strewed flame over the black sticks. Lilli smiled and stretched out her hands to the warmth.
“Will I ever be able to summon the salamanders like you do, my lord?”
“Someday, if you do your lessons well. There’s many a long walk up that particular mountain, however, before you reach the top.”
While Lilli cleared off his table and stacked the clutter on the floor, Nevyn opened the big canvas pack of herbs where he kept the wood box housing the curse tablet. He’d buried it deep inside, for fear a servant might find the thing, in the midst of cloth bags of herbs and roots. He fished it out and weighed it in both hands. He could have sworn the thing seemed heavier than it had before.
In the center of the table he set the box down. With a stick of charcoal he drew a circle round it deosil; at each cardinal point, he physically drew a pentagram upon the table. When he called down the etheric light, it clung to the lines of the diagram and glowed silvery-blue. Only then, with the pentagrams radiating power, did Nevyn open the box and remove the lead tablet.
In the midst of blue fire it glowed with a light of its own, poison-green and oily, somehow, just as Lilli had described it earlier. That he could see it so clearly troubled him. Nevyn shut the wood box and set the tablet upon it in the midst of the sigils drawn upon the lid.
“Gods, it’s ghastly!” Lilli said.
“It is that. Now, you take the chair and go sit by the door. Your part in this is simple. I’m going to try to banish the evil by driving it out and scattering it. I want you to watch the tablet and tell me if it appears to change.”
Lilli did as he’d told her. Once she was safely at a distance, Nevyn raised his hands high over his head. He took a deep breath, and as he let it out he called upon the One True Light that shines beyond the gods. He could feel his voice as much as hear it, booming and vibrating through his chamber. When he shut his eyes, he saw the Light with the inner vision as a river of pure brilliance, circling the earth and flowing among the stars. Into his outstretched hands its power fell from the stars in a cascade of glowing white light. He felt it run down his arms, felt it pierce him like a spear and carry him away. His chamber disappeared into the blaze of white.
With a wordless cry Nevyn flung his arms out to the side, so that it seemed he hung on a brilliant cross of light. Upon it he floated over the edge of the waterfall. The tumbling light roared in his ears and carried him down from the stars. Slowly the brilliance faded and he could see once again. He stood in his chamber, but the light, turned silver, trembled within him, no longer cold like water, but burning like fire. Although he heard Lilli cry out in awe, her voice seemed to come from a thousand miles away, and he bent his concentration to the tablet lying amidst the sigils.
The strip of lead appeared shrunken, its poison light dimmed, while the pentagrams drawn on the table seemed to float free of the wood, as if they were made of shiny black metal instead of charcoal. Nevyn raised his arms and brought his hands together over his head. He saw the light as a spear, rising up from deep within him, rising up through his arms and out of his hands until it seemed he held a spear of blinding white. He could feel its weight,