“You are giving her to me? But how? She is another man’s wife?”
He feels the panic and the dread he has been holding back these past long hours suddenly break free.
“But you promised to give my love, my own Lady, back to me.”
“BE SILENT!” The voice seems to hiss from the shadowy, black walls of the vault itself. “We know very well what we promised you.”
He falls to his knees in despair and deep obeisance, and presses his face against the cold rock of the floor.
“My Lady Urth, I am truly sorry; I was thoughtless. I meant no disrespect.”
The voice crackles with scorn and derision. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Always you beg and always you are sorry. You are a craven abomination to man, do you know that?”
“Yes, my Lady.”
“That is why your wife ran to the arms, and to the bed, of another.”
His eyes creep along the floor of the vault to gaze up at the motionless figure of Lancelot, the plate of his armour picked out of the shadows by the flickering light of the lantern. He knows it is the truth.
“Let me tell him, Sister – let me be merciful.” His heart leaps. It is Skuld.
“Be careful, Skuld.” Verthandi’s strident tones swell and roll around the vault. “Don’t be too soft with him. The mortal already yearns to have you.”
He cringes and the voices of the three Sisters of the Wyrd, even Skuld’s, dissolve into peels of mocking laughter.
And then Skuld, who reminds him so much of his true love, of his Lady as she was before the bad times, before he put her to eternal slumber in this very vault, speaks to him.
“Your lady will wake. Once your tasks are complete and the blood-gift is sealed, by our power she will be awoken and by our power her spirit will take the body of the other woman yet living.”
He opens his eyes. The ripples and fissures of the whinstone floor dance orange in the lantern-light.
“She must take the place of the other woman?” he asks, puzzled now.
“She must,” Skuld replies. “The natural balance of order must be maintained. If her spirit is to take its place once more in this world, then another must be removed. We have decided that she will assume the body of the woman Lucie Fox.”
He feels the cold seeping into his skin from the black stone beneath it and he sobs. He understands now and he sobs in gratitude for their great mercy.