The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [33]
The fool had changed for a moment—he had seemed more like a small, frightened child than a mad prankster. But whatever had happened, the moment was gone, and Durge had had quite enough.
“And under my feet you’ll be pressed, Fool, if you don’t move—now!”
Durge barreled forward, and Tharkis was forced to jump into the air and turn a somersault to avoid being trampled. There came a dissonant chiming as the fool landed behind him, but Durge kept moving. Tharkis’s shrill voice called out behind him.
“A spider spins a shimm’ring web,
And seeks to catch us with her thread.
But all her plans can come to naught
If in her own web she is caught.
“Who’s the spider, who’s the fly?
This riddle answer as you spy:
If a spider can be captured,
Who then spins the web that traps her?”
The words faded on the dusty air, but Durge did not turn to reply. Instead he shut his ears to ghosts and madness, and strode away down the corridor.
12.
In all the activity of the three days between the first meeting of the High Coven and Prime Incant—when the Witches would weave a new Pattern to last them until their next meeting—Lirith was almost able to forget about the dreams. And the tangle she had glimpsed in the Weirding.
This was only the second High Coven she had attended since her entry into the Witches. The first had been seven years ago, held in the castle of Baron Darthus in southern Toloria—where it was said that the old baron knew quite well his young wife was a witch, and that he was more than pleased by the fact, given the simples she brewed which had brought new vigor to his loins. That had been in the spring of Lirith’s twentieth winter, and only months after she had fled the Free City of Corantha, walked on bare, bloody feet to Toloria, and never looked back.
At that High Coven she had been more a mouse than a novitiate: small, brown, and wide-eyed, pressed into corners while she watched those of greater strength and cunning prowl around her. But she had paid attention, and she had learned.
It was less than a year later when she caught the eye of Lord Berend of Arafel, one of Baron Darthus’s counts. Six months later they were wed—despite Lirith’s lack of history and the protests of Berend’s sister, who fancied herself countess and did not care for competition.
When Berend died just over a year later, it was whispered—and mostly by Berend’s sister—that it was a potion concocted by Lirith that had done the trick. However, while it was true that Lirith had used some small charms to gain Berend’s notice, it was not by magic that he had loved her, and not by magic that he had died. While Lirith could not say she had truly returned Berend’s love, she had felt affection for the count, and she had never been cruel to him.
After Berend’s death, his sister had petitioned Queen Ivalaine for possession of the estate, but the queen had refused and Lirith remained countess. After the count’s sister followed her brother to the grave the following winter—there had ever been weak hearts in that lineage—no one seemed to recall that Lirith had not been born to the position. She had ruled for several years, and her subjects had cared for her.
Then, two years ago, when Queen Ivalaine summoned her to Ar-tolor, Lirith had gone willingly. She had left care of the estate to Berend’s nephew, and so the count’s sister finally got what she had wished for—only she had not lived long enough to enjoy it, as happened often with those who were consumed by desire.
In the time since, Lirith had thought little of Count Berend or their estate in southern Toloria. This was where she belonged. In Ar-tolor, in the service of the Witch Queen, attending a High Coven.
And this time Lirith did not hide in corners. Instead, she sought out those witches of most interest to her, to speak about herb lore or the art of scrying, or ways to Touch the Weirding and weave it in new patterns. It was no chance that many whom she went to were the eldest of the Witches: the crones and