The belly of the old woman was now split open and Zernebock was pulling the child out of the woman’s womb. There was surprisingly little blood spilled, as if the body had been completely drained of blood before the child had been removed. From my viewpoint, the old woman’s body now looked like nothing but an empty husk. The body now forgotten, Zernebock cradled the infant in the crook of one arm and started to turn around. As the malevolent eyes passed my viewpoint, Zernebock froze. Once more this Ancient one appeared to be staring into my very soul. A frown turned the thin-lipped grin into a terrible grimace, and again the strange language was spoken. This time I had no trouble understanding it.
“I dinna ken how thee be able to bear th’ Death Spell or from whence thee comes. But thou shalt surely fall into mine hands if thou shouldst become a physical form, Shade! Thou shalt then bide th’ agony I wilt deliver upon thee! Be wary of this, Shade!”
While Zernebock spoke, I took a quick glance at the child stolen from its mother. I gasped in shock as I saw the infant, won-dering what kind of creature could have been the sire. The infant’s head was much larger than the rest of its body. Its face was one of a very old man with deep creases of old, old age, beyond the cute wrinkles of a newborn. As I looked at the infant, the eyes opened into huge, pale, depthless orbs that reflected the pain of being born and much, much more.
I knew that I had to get away from these two beings, so I began to withdraw from this memory. I felt uneasy with the way Zernebock was able to detect me, even though I was not really there. I didn’t know if Zernebock would be able to touch me with one of his spells through time and dimensions, and I wasn’t about to take any further chances. But, as the scene began to fade, Zernebock spoke to me once again.
“Heed this augury, Shade! This babe shalt wreak grievous privations upon yon peoples. Then wilt thine world be laid bare to mine enmity. Thou shalt also become mine bondslave, Shade! Know this and tremble with thine fear!”
Anger immediately filled me as I was withdrawing, and I shouted, hoping Zernebock would hear me. “Nay! Thou shalt never meet thy designs whilst breath yet quickens within me!”
Those words surprised me. They weren’t what I had intended to say, though the meaning was the same. I was about to add more to this loathsome creature, but once again I found myself in the strange mind-hallway of corridors, passing those branching pathways leading to other memories. Quickly, I also began to withdraw from the Gnome’s mind, just wanting to be as far away from the evil that I had so far been mute witness to. But, as I began leaving the Gnome’s evil mind presence behind, Zernebock’s horrible voice seemed to follow me out, alerting the Gnome to my presence.
“Wick,” the evil voice echoed around me, “a Shade leaves thine memories. Yon female dost not possess an interest to mine purposes. Snare yon Shade before it canst make leave and bind it unto mine will!”
The Gnome quickly spun on its heels, searching the very air surrounding it. I immediately sent my thoughts toward Lynarra, hoping to make contact again. It came at once with an air of amazement in her mind.
“Chalder! Be ye here nou?” she whispered.
“Lynarra, be calm. I am only speaking to you in your mind, much as you did to me before. Think your words to me. We should be able to speak one to the other well that way.”
Her thoughts then came to me clearly. “Chalder, we need ye. Where be ye?” The fear was very evident in her thoughts.
“As I said, be calm, Lynarra. I am yet in an hospice. I merely shut mine eyes and found myself with ye. Yet, I think I can be of aid.”
“Be ye able to aid when ye be there and nae be here?”
“Be ready to escape out yon window as I attract Wick’s note.”
“But Chalder, Wick has enmity toward all who interfere against his will. Ye shall hae nae chance against him lest ye take up Daystryker.”
“Harken unto my words with care, Lynarra. Already once I’ve faced Zernebock’s death spell and bore no ill. Wick canst do nothing to me. I am only with you in the form that Zernebock calls a shade.”
“Be it so, Chalder, ye know best in this matter. But please, take care. Wick kens magiks which are beyond a person’s reason. And, he has…” Her thoughts ended in a gasp.
I quickly backed my presence away from her and caught sight of the gnome moving around the corner of the stone block. I began to feel an anger at his finding Lynarra, and focused my presence at his mind again, leading with all of the anger I could amass.
Wick’s mind opened up to me once again, the force of his evil washing over me with a foul stench, and I had to fight off a brief surge of panic. I had to keep in mind that he couldn’t touch me because only my thoughts were here. My body and true presence
was still in bed, in room 416, in a San Diego hospital. Abstractly, I wondered if I appeared to be asleep and what would happen if someone there tried to awaken me. Then I refocused on the problem at hand. Wick’s thoughts were filled with anticipation of evil and he grinned an evil smile when he spotted the young girl crouched behind the stone block.
“Aha! Ye hae nae hope o’ getting away nou. Ye belong t’ me!” His voice was grating on my nerves; slightly low-pitched, with the sound like rocks grinding together. The glee in his voice was almost too much to bear. As he raised his hands toward Lynarra and took another step forward, I yelled as loud as I could with my thoughts.
“Hold!!!” I calculated my thoughts to ring in his ears, making it impossible to tell exactly where the sound was coming from. He immediately spun on one toe, searching for the source of the voice which was ringing in his ears. Of course, no one was there, but it took him a moment to verify that. Lynarra took that opportunity to make her escape and leapt for the window. The sound of her footsteps made Wick spin back in her direction, so, once again, my thoughts crashed into his mind, making him whirl about.
This time however, he started moving his arms in an intricate motion, like he was tracing a design in the air. Then the lines became visible to me as a faint glow, but there was something wrong with it. When I looked directly at the design, it faded out of focus, causing my eyes to work hard at trying to refix it. If I turned my gaze to one side, though, the design came into crystal clarity, visible only to my peripheral vision. Wick had been mumbling all the while he was tracing the motions in the air. And the words which reached my ears sounded vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t exactly place them.
Suddenly, I caught the meaning of the words Wick was muttering and I started to get scared. Quickly, I once more began to withdraw from this world, but then Wick threw his arms out in my direction. The design that glowed in the air started moving rapidly toward me and I immediately spoke a counter-spell. Exactly where
the words I spoke came from and what they meant, I didn’t really know; neither did I care. But speak them, I did, and just as I knew that these particular words would stop this particular threat, I knew it was time for me to leave Wick and his malevolence, now that Lynarra had made her escape.
Just before the scene in my mind’s eye vanished, I saw a shimmering aura appear in the air before the glowing design. I knew that I had been the cause of this new appearance, but again, I really wasn’t sure where it had come from. Only that it had appeared at my summoning. Then both spells came together and were gone with a resounding thunderclap that hurt my ears, and a smell of ozone burning my nose.
FIVE