The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [15]
Durge staggered back. It felt as if the blood had been drained from his veins by a cold knife.
“Go away,” he croaked. “I am an old man now. Will you not let me be free?”
Tears coursed down his cheeks, steaming in the frigid air. Now the woman’s expression seemed sorrowful. She reached for him, but at that moment the rising sun broke through the mist outside. Its light pierced the substance of the ghosts, and in an instant they were gone.
6.
Lirith woke with a gasp.
She sat up in bed, her nightgown damp and clammy with sweat. Something had awakened her—but what was it? She saw only mundane objects in the colorless light that filtered through the narrow window: a chair, a table, the wardrobe. Quickly, she shut her eyes, gazing with another sort of vision.
At once she saw the shimmering web of magic that wove itself over and among all things, brilliant with color where all had been dull gray before. The warmth of the Weirding flooded her, filling her with reassurance. Everything was as it should be.
Perhaps it was only her dream that disturbed her. Why it had come to her, she didn’t know. It had been so long since she had thought of that place, that time. Yet she could smell the heavy smoke of incense, hear the clink of beads and harsh laughter drifting on steamy air as if she were still there.
Dance, my dark one. Dance if you ever hope to be free. What a beautiful thing you are, as lovely as the night itself. Yes, you see it now—this is the only way.…
Despite the comforting tendrils of the Weirding that coiled around her, Lirith shivered. What had made her think of things so long and far ago? But perhaps it was not such a mystery.
You flee your fate. Yet you cannot escape it, for it lies within you.
Lirith could still see the drawing of the barren battlefield on the card, and the black shape of the Raven. But the old woman was wrong. Lirith had escaped her fate. She had escaped it the day she fled Gulthas’s house seven years ago. Maybe Durge and the queen were right; maybe the magics of the Mournish were nothing more than tricks and illusions intended to poison.
And what of him, sister? Is that a trick as well—the way he keeps stealing into your thoughts?
Without even meaning to, she concentrated, forming the threads of the Weirding into a glowing shape before her: a man with black hair, deep, mysterious eyes, and one leg. So easy it would have been to extend the threads of the Weirding, to mold them into a new leg so that in her vision he would be perfect. However, she did not.
Late last night as she lay in bed, after their meeting with Queen Ivalaine, she had conjured a similar vision, although in this one he had worn no vest, no billowing trousers of blue. It was a bit of foolishness, more to be expected of a young witch just learning to shape the Weirding than of a lady full grown and past her seven-and-twentieth year. All the same, Lirith had brought the vision close to her, touching herself as she imagined him entering her.
As she should have expected, it had been like touching cold clay rather than warm flesh.
A breath escaped her, and she let the image before her unravel. There was no use in thinking of him or his deep, chiming laugh. In a few days, Sareth would leave Ar-tolor with his people to wander the world again. Such was his fate. And the old woman had been right about one thing—nothing and no one could bring life to a land so long barren. Such was hers.
It was time to rise; Lirith could feel the sun breaking through the mist outside, filling the land with new life, if not all who dwelled upon it. She started to let go of the Weirding.
That was when she saw it. Her vision of Sareth had blinded her, but now that her sight was clear there was no mistaking it. It seethed on the edge of her vision like a knot of gray serpents: a tangle in the threads of the Weirding.
Warm reassurance became watery horror. Always in Lirith’s experience, when she used the Touch to glimpse them, the threads of Weirding wove smoothly among one another in a web as faultless