Death of an Adept

Immediately Raeburn's blood began to race along the tube, pooling in the bowl, steaming in the cold. Raeburn watched for a moment, stony-faced, then closed his eyes and leaned his head against the doorjamb, content to let Mallory monitor the procedure.

While he bled, Angela Fitzgerald made her way to the castle's well in the northeast tower, taking with her a metal flask attached to a long cord. The protective grid of iron bars overlaying the well-top was coarse enough to let her lower the flask to draw up a measure of dark, evil-smelling water, which she held at arm's length as she took it back to the courtyard.

Mallory was taping a wad of sterile cotton to Raeburn's arm as she returned; the leaden bowl in Raeburn's other hand was three-quarters filled with his blood. Raeburn lurched to his feet when Mallory had taken the bowl from him, steadying himself against the doorjamb while Mallory stowed the debris from the blood-letting operation in his black bag. When the physician rose, he had the bowl of blood in one hand and a brush made from swine's bristles in the other.

"You're on," he murmured, glancing over Raeburn with a physician's eye. "Any lightheadedness?"

Shaking his head, Raeburn motioned for Mallory to follow him into the center of the courtyard, where he set the casket on the ground beside the cauldron. Taking the bowl and brush from Mallory, he then proceeded to paint a large equilateral triangle on the stone flagging around the cauldron, big enough to also contain a recumbent man. While he worked, Mallory retrieved his medical bag and returned to where Taliere sat, head slumped forward on his chest and with Barclay and Angela supporting him.

Raeburn finished the triangle and went to the north of the cauldron, where he began inscribing a large circle to contain their working area. Angela moved to stand just inside the western quarter of the circle he traced, watching as Mallory crouched at Taliere's feet and filled an earthen cup from a flask in his medical bag. The physician gestured to Barclay as he rose, setting his free hand on the old Druid's shoulder.

"Tilt his head back, so I can give him this," he said.

Barclay complied, watching as Mallory tipped the contents of the cup down the old man's throat.

"Is that what he made me drink, after we did the bull?" he asked in a low voice.

"Aye, from his own supply. It's a draught of mistletoe."

Meanwhile, using all the blood that remained in the bowl, Raeburn completed his circle, set the empty bowl and brush outside, then took took the Pictish dagger from its casket. The corroded blade had been honed to razor-sharpness along one edge, so that the silvery line shimmered in the murky light as he moved back to the northern quadrant of the boundary circle and raised the blade skyward in salute. A muttered invocation stirred power in the circle, focused through the blade as he touched its tip to the line of blood with a sibilant Word of command.

Eldritch energies seared upward where metal kissed blood, like a tinder brand bursting into flames. Raeburn recoiled from its brilliance, one hand upheld to shield his eyes as, hissing, the charge raced widdershins around the circle like a spark devouring a fuse, leaving behind a ghostly afterimage of flick- ering motes. When the sparks faded out, the wall of force remained in place, impenetrable as a curtain of lead.

Raeburn allowed himself a tiny sigh of relief, his pale eyes gone dark like adamant. Shifting the dagger to his left hand, he moved back beside the cauldron and lifted both arms above his head in an attitude of summoning.

"Glorious is the Night, womb of eternal Darkness!" he cried. "Glorious are the Ancient Ones who refuse to be hallowed by the Light! Glorious are the Rebellious Ones who scorn the sovereignty of Heaven! Glorious are the Mighty Ones who delight in the counsels of Shadow! Shield us, we pray, from the sight of those who profess Enlightenment! Glorify Yourselves, we beseech You, in concealing the work of our hands!"

With these words he reverted to one of the arcane tongues of command to which his occult studies had long ago given him access, swaying on his feet with closed eyes as Barclay moved forward to break open the jerrycan of oil and empty it into the cauldron: With Mallory assisting, he next wrapped the length of iron chain around the roll of lead sheeting and locked it in place with a heavy, old-fashioned padlock. Then the two of them lifted the roll into the cauldron, bracing it up on one end in grotesque parody of a gallows victim.