Death of an Adept

The hatted figure turned as Barclay pulled in next to the other Land Rover and killed the engine, Mallory's handsome, dissipated features just discernible in the dim light. Raeburn alighted from the passenger side and approached, his casket under one arm, summoning the young physician with a curt gesture.

"How's our patient?" he inquired in a low voice.

Mallory glanced back at the figure slumped under the blanket, now just recognizable as Taliere.

"He's had his medicine. He won't give you any trouble."

"You'd better hope he doesn't," Angela muttered, as Barclay handed her out of the rear passenger seat. "We're only going to get one shot at this, so everything had better go as planned."

"If it doesn't, it won't be my fault!" Mallory retorted.

"Quiet, you two!" Raeburn snapped.

Gathering valises of personal gear from the back of the Land Rover, Raeburn and his associates made their way around the base of the walls to the postern entrance on the east side. The entryway gave access to the castle courtyard, its broken cobbles overshadowed by frowning walls of dull red stone. A makeshift canvas roof had been contrived to contain the murky light of a handful of hi-tech mini-spots set at strategic locations all around, their filtered glow washing the enclosure with a smoky amber that mimicked torchlight.

At the center of the courtyard, surrounding a large brazen cauldron, staves of rowan wood had been woven together to create a ritual facsimile of an execution pyre. Other necessities for the night's work had been assembled on the ground nearby, including a coiled length of heavy iron chain, a large jerrycan of oil, a roll of lead sheeting the height of a man, and several large suitcases.

Raeburn took stock of the assembled accoutrements, Angela ticking off items from a written list, then curtly nodded his approval. In the course of his brief inventory, Mallory and one of Richter's men brought in a glassy-eyed and stumbling Tal-iere, his blanket now trailing from his shoulders like a cloak over the flowing white Druid robes he had worn at Callanish. Raeburn fell silent as the old man was chivvied over to the cauldron and allowed to sink to his knees, turning then to the waiting Richter.

"Everything seems to be in order," he murmured. "You and your men can take your stations outside. Keep a close watch. I'll send for you when we're finished."

Richter and his men withdrew. The courtyard was as dank and frigid as the bottom of a frozen well, but Raeburn seemed hardly aware of the cold as he shed his outer garments to pull on a full-length hooded robe of black wool which Barclay produced from one of the suitcases. His trio of assistants likewise effected a change of attire, their robes embroidered on the left shoulder, like Raeburn's, with the silver-limned emblem of a snarling lynx head. In addition, betokening his status as senior of the group, Raeburn donned a disk-shaped medallion of beaten silver upon which the device of the lynx head had been executed in bold relief.

Once robed, Barclay and Angela made their way over to Taliere and pulled him unceremoniously to his feet. His wits dulled by narcotics, the old Druid offered no resistance as Angela whipped the blanket from his shoulders and replaced it with the feathered mantle he had worn at Callanish. Her features took on a vulpine sharpness as she lifted the bird-feather headdress from its carrying case and set it firmly on Taliere's salt-white head.

"Ecce homo,'' she sneered aside to Barclay, as they sat the Druid on a nearby block of stone. "The perfect offering for this momentous occasion."

Raeburn and Mallory, meanwhile, had retreated to the recess of a closed doorway, where Mallory was laying out items from his medical bag, by the light of an electric torch. Crouching down to sit on the doorsill beside Mallory, his back braced against the door frame, Raeburn cradled the casket in his lap, then bared his left arm and offered it to the physician. He paid little attention as Mallory applied a tourniquet above his elbow, mechanically clenching and unclenching his fist to pump up the vein as he mentally rehearsed the sequence of events to come.

A sharp whiff of alcohol quickly recalled him, punctuated by the cold caress of the sterile wipe Mallory scrubbed over the inside of his bare arm - and then the bite of the needle. A faint smile lifted one corner of Raeburn's mouth as he watched his own blood begin to creep down the flexible length of clear plastic tubing attached to the needle, halted by a metal clamp midway along the tube until Mallory could apply a strip of tape to stabilize the needle. That done, Mallory set a small leaden bowl in his chief's free hand, retrieved the free end of the tube and directed it into the bowl - threaded under Raeburn's thumb to secure it - then loosed the tourniquet and thumbed the metal clamp.