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."Is Roiga meantime testing the lamps and candles that were brought with him?" Garch remembered toask, somewhat belatedly.He had given that instruction, and not checked that it was carried out-thoughRunch and Roiga, of all his retinue, had most to lose by neglecting his requirements."I come from her, sir," a nervous waiting-maid reported, who was trying not to look at the limp body ofBuldebrime, or anything else present in the cell."She assures me she has tested every one, and whateveryou seek-uh-isn't there."Garch drew himself up to his full height."So the treacherous lamp-man has tricked me," he muttered."Can he not be aroused by midnight?""By no art known to me," said Humblenode apologetically.It was the first time he had failed his master,and he braced himself as though to endure his own style of treatment in consequence.But Garch swung on his heel and strode away.He came upon his sister, together with Runch and attendants, at the head of the dank noisome stairwayto the dungeons; his private means of vertical transport did not, for logical reasons, extend into this level."Have you succeeded?" Scail cried."Failed!""And midnight nears!" Runch muttered."What must be done, must be done," said Garch."Prepare me for my watch alone.""But surely tonight it was imperative to conjure Wolpec, and ask his earnest of your ultimate success!"Under her face-mantling layers of rouge and powder, the lady Scail blanched."What's to be done will be done now!" Garch snapped."Like it or not! You have tomorrow's daylight torun away by, if that's your plan.For the moment, leave me - time is short."Without so much as a brotherly embrace, let alone that other kind which had in the past lent certaincrucial potency to his doings, he pushed by them both and was gone.Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlUnder the supervision of the crone Roiga, servants had toiled to bring many articles into the cabinet shewas making ready.It lacked windows, naturally; what air there was must seep through tiny crevices, andabout each, carefully marked, there had been inscribed a line of minuscule writing in an obsoletesyllabary.It lacked furniture, too; in place of that it was hung with curtains of goat-hide, wovenmarsh-grass and the plaited hair of murdered girls.There was a mirror in the center of its floor, whichwas as true a circle as the mason's art could contrive, but that mirror was cracked across, and thetraveler knew with what hammer the blow would have been struck: silver-headed, hafted with a portionof his anatomy that some man-albeit briefly-would have lived to regret the loss of.He had been awarethat enchantments of this calibre were still conducted, but in this case at least one unqualifiedly essentialpreliminary to them had been totally neglected.Patience.Rat's-bane and wolf-hemp; powder of dragon-bone and mullet-roe; candied mallow and murex pigment;vantcheen spice.Yes, all the ancient indispensables were here.Bar one.Bar the one that mattered morethan anything.The traveler withdrew into dismal contemplation.Then, finally, Garch came, pale and trembling but determined not to let his companions recognize the fulldepth of his terror, to perform the rites required of him as lord of this land which yielded more than itsproper share of good things.He was correctly robed in a chasuble of blood-hue; he correctly wore oneshoe of hide and one of cloth; he correctly bore the wand, the orb and the sash; and the proper symbols,though awkwardly, had been inscribed on his palms with henna and indigo.He entered the door of ashwood clamped with brass, and it was closed at his back with the traditionalbraided withes: one at the height of his neck, one at the height of his heart, and one at the height of hisgenitals.That done, Runch and Roiga and Scail perforce withdrew.Unless they chose to run away,indeed, by tomorrow's daylight, the process was in train and they were to be dragged with it.Even running away might not help.As for the traveler in black, he had no choice.This was intrinsically a part of that which bound him.Fromthis moment forward, he was compelled to remain.Here was no petty hearthside conjuration, to belaughed at when it failed and probably neglected thereafter; here was no witty tampering with the courseof natural events, such as certain happy enchanters had counted a fair reward for the relief of boredom;here was no ritual from which overt profit instantly ensued, such as the merchant enchanters of a bygoneage had employed to make their cities prosperous.No, those trivialities could be ignored.Here, though, was a ceremony so elaborate, so pregnant withpossibility and so absolutely devoid of probability that its very name, regardless of what language it wasuttered in, sent shivers down the spines of uncomprehending listeners.Here, set on foot in a selfishlordling's mansion, was such a pattern as had not been undertaken since the epoch of the Grand FiveWeavers and the Notorious Magisters of Alken Cromlech: the most ancient, the most arcane, the mosthonorable appellation of the Ones Who-The traveler froze the progress of his mind.Almost, he had recited the full title to himself.And were he todo so, all-all-everything would be eternally lost.If it were not already lost.He feared it was.Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlVIIThe lady Scail slept but ill that night, and when her shoulder was gently touched at last by thewaiting-maid who attended her in her chamber, she rolled her face fretfully back into her satin pillows."Fool!" she snapped."I said to waken me at dawn.I'll have your head for disturbing me when it's still fulldark!"Indeed, across the windows a pall of utter lightlessness remained."But, madam," whispered the poor girl, "according to our time-candles dawn should have befallen anhour ago.Yet the sky remains like pitch!"Lady Scail sat up on the instant.Through the opened shutters she saw the truth of the maid's assertion.Rising from her night-couch, she exclaimed in wonder."Why-why, that bodes success after all! Here, girl, go rout out Runch and Roiga from their beds, and bidthem wait on me at once!"Unprecedentedly, without waiting to be handed her day-time garments, she threw aside hersleeping-gown and struggled by herself into a creased chemise.Similarly awakened, Roiga trembled with delight and anticipation.She had spent weary decades pent in aworn-out body, with her knees cracking from the rheumatism and her eyes returning blurred images ofthe outer world.Now under her shriveled bosom her heart beat hammer-wise at the impending prospectof re-purchased youth.It was the same for one-eyed Runch: still a mighty man to outward view, scorning the luxury of hiscompanions and affecting the disciplined, hardy habits of a soldier accustomed to sleeping in fields andmarching all day through sleet and hail.Therefore he reposed at night on a simple bed of planks with oneblanket.But over the past few years he had more and more often failed to pleasure the girls he summoned to hiscouch, until at length he had been unable to endure further humiliation, and took to sleeping alone.The promise of being able to rectify that.!These three, however-and perhaps Garch himself, but none could certify what was transpiring in hissecret room-were the only persons in the whole of the Cleftor lands who found any semblance of joy togreet the advent of this amazing and unprecedented.day? Well, "day" it should indeed have been byrights, and everywhere there should have been the normal daily bustle: the younger children playing by thedoorway, the older dispatched to their dame-schools with their slates and pencils; the farmers bound tomarket hauling their travoises laden with cheese and bacon, their wives plucking geese or hunting eggs [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]