9 July, 1574. Paris.
For three days I searched for Hal in my scrying bowl. I sought him from deep within the Earth in the safety of the crypt. I sought him in the open air of the park before the embassy. I sought him in a puddle of ale on a tavern table.
All I saw of my cousin was the cloud of darkness that cried tears of blood.
While I cast this small magic, my cousins and Thom Steward appealed for an interview with the Spanish ambassador. They sought the help of the English ambassador but he had left Paris, escaping the heat and disease and evil humors of summer. The Spanish guards turned my family away at the door. Thom Steward wrote to the Spaniard directly, using Uncle Donovan’s name. They pounded on the gates in the name of the Pendragon.
Always they were turned aside.
Coffa refused to eat. I had no appetite. We both spent long hours staring into an empty distance. We wasted and we pined.
Instead of enhancing my magic, the ghostweed seemed to have drained it from me. The one time I truly wished to use my magic it would not heed my call.
While my mind roiled, the city quieted. The mercenaries slipped away from their camp and did not regroup. The monstrous deaths around the cathedral ceased. The heavy pall of dread left the Parisians and settled upon my shoulders. All of it.
My spirit nearly broke under the weight of it.
For three days I accepted this as my cost for the spell I had worked.
On the third day I awoke knowing that the heavy cloud of despair originated not with myself, but from an outside force. A very powerful magician controlled me, kept me from seeking Hal directly.
The time had come for action. I shrugged off the nearly overwhelming dread, ate a hearty breakfast, and went in search of the components of my next spell.
o0o
9 July, 1574. The cellars beneath the Spanish Embassy, Paris.
Hal breathed deeply, willing the lingering aches and cuts to fade. At least the Spaniard had moved his chains and shackles to a lower hook that allowed him to recline or sit on the straw.
Cold seeped into his butt and lower back from the stone floor. Dampness from the ancient cellar walls invaded his shoulders. The cuts on his back eased briefly with the cool contact. Then they hurt more from being too cold.
He did not know how long he had lingered here, half conscious. El Lobison came and went at irregular intervals. Sometimes he burned incense, drew arcane sigils in the air, leaving trails of fire, and chanted in some guttural language. Sometimes he rubbed part of Helwriaeth’s rotting corpse into Hal’s wounds. Sometimes he just stared at Hal with malicious gloating.
Hal understood none of these rituals.
He drew in another long breath, held it, released it on the same count. His mind drifted toward home. Kirkenwood. The castle atop the tor, the village, the standing stones.
But the faces in the granite stones closed their eyes and turned away from him.
He jerked awake from the half dream. Why would his ancestors shun him?
“Ah, you are awake,” the Spaniard said from the doorway.
How had he entered so silently? Or had he been in the cell all along?
“I asked the English ambassador about you last night,” the Spaniard continued with only the briefest of pauses. He kept his arms folded so that the hook was masked by his sleeves.
Hal turned his head away, gesturing his refusal to listen.
“Does it surprise you that I should dine in such august company?”
“Why did the ambassador not leave Paris for the summer?”
“He came back at my behest. We had much to discuss.”
“I am surprised that a civilized man would receive you.” Hal could not help replying. He put every ounce of contempt he could muster into his words.
“Ah, but the noble and powerful of Paris do not openly acknowledge who I am. Just as they do not acknowledge you or the heritage you claim.”
“I am the Pendragon of Britain. There is no one else to challenge me.”
“Do you protest too much, Pendragon Niño?”
“There is no one else.” Hal hung his head as if in sadness.
“We are much alike.” The Spaniard, too, dropped his gaze. Possibly he grieved for lost family. Possibly he lied with every word and breath.
“I will never be like you!” Hal spat.
“But you already are.” The Spaniard gestured with his hook, looked hard at it, then tucked it into the folds of his short cloak. Out of sight, out of mind. “I have asked many questions in the last three days. It seems many people know the legend of the Pendragons of Britain, but no one knows for certain that you exist, or perhaps you lived long, long ago.” The Spaniard cocked his head and considered Hal for several moments.
Hal would not dignify his statement with a comment.
“I heard rumors that your family pays lip service to the dominant religion of the day, but secretly you maintain a reverence only for the old gods, the old ways, and the old magic. You keep them alive when all others turn their backs.”
The Spaniard ceased his examination of Hal and sorted through a pile of rags and herb packets beyond the brazier in the opposite corner of the cell from Hal. He emerged from the shadows with a heavy fur pelt draped across his arms.
Hal gasped in revulsion that the man had skinned Helwriaeth and now displayed a trophy.
But the coloring was wrong. And the animal had been much smaller than a full grown male wolfhound.
“A wolf pelt,” the Spaniard explained. “A fresh one. I had to send my men deep into the forest to hunt it. A used pelt will not do for you, my Pendragon Niño.”
“I do not belong to you.”
“But you will.” The man grinned, showing his yellow and pointed teeth.
Hal shuddered at the pain he must have endured to file his teeth so they resembled the wolf’s.
“My family, like yours, traces our ancestry deep into the past. Long before Christian or Muslim came to Spain, we ruled as magician kings. With each wave of conquerors, we have... adapted. I and my family have become the most trusted advisers to the new men who call themselves kings and emperors. I believe your family serves the same function. We both whisper into the ears of politicians. We spy for them, and we manipulate our country’s enemies. But our memories are long. My family, too, worships the old gods, the old ways, and the old magic in secret.”
“Black magic,” Hal muttered.
“Perhaps. Who can define magic? It is a part of life if we but embrace it.”
Hal could not argue with that. Instead, he kept his eyes on the wolf pelt that the Spaniard stroked with his fingers. What could be the purpose of the pelt? He could think of no means it could be used to continue the torture perpetuated by the man.
“What you call white magic is but a weak attempt to bend the forces of nature. I use magic more thoroughly. I do not merely bend, I change and control to my own needs.”
“You pervert the talent granted you.”
“No. I embrace it. I utilize my gifts to the fullest. You will not. Therefore you will never have enough power to defeat or even escape me.” The man sounded so calm, so rational.
A great trembling began in Hal’s gut. If what he said was true...
“Now for the next part of the ritual.” The Spaniard draped the pelt around Hal’s shoulders. He patted it into place with his right hand, keeping the wickedly sharp hook behind him. The skin beneath the fur was still raw and bloody.
Hal nearly gagged at the smell of blood. At the same time his body betrayed his sensibilities by snuggling into the instant warmth generated by the fur against his skin.
The Spaniard drew the muzzle of the wolf and the tail together across Hal’s chest. He chanted again in that bizarre language. An old language, older than Latin, Greek, or Welsh. Perhaps older than time itself.
A strange sense of the world falling away cleared Hal’s mind. He saw, heard, felt, and smelled only this cell, the man before him, the fire glowing in the brazier.
Suddenly his skin itched all over his body. The pelt blasted new heat into his bones. He needed to fling it off. The chains kept his hands immobile. He wiggled his shoulders, trying to shrug it away. It seemed to nestle more securely about his neck and across his chest.
A howl threatened to erupt from his throat. He clamped down on it before it was fully born.
“Ah, you are nearly ready to take on the form of the wolf. The pelt merely dictates which form you will take at transformation.”
“I will not succumb,” he said to himself over and over.
“Ah, but you will succumb, because I am the greater power,” the Spaniard said. He dangled a new item from his stash beyond the brazier from the hook. A richly jeweled and furred belt with silver fittings and buckles.
“What... what is that?” The heat and the itch had almost become a part of Hal. He practically welcomed a continuation of the discomfort.
He had to remind himself that he was stronger than he seemed. He had the spirit of Helwriaeth and all of his ancestors to help him.
He just wished they would give him some ideas of what he could do to stop this obscene ritual.
“’Tis a girdle most ancient and powerful,” the Spaniard said. “I liberated it from a primitive tribe that lived on the steppes of the Silk Road. It cost me dearly. I lost many mercenary troops defeating their warriors and enslaving their women. They bungled more than the attack. They lost their booty and I had to buy the women at auction in Byzantium. Beautiful women. Women most skilled in ancient arts lost to the chaste and boring females of Christendom and Islam.” He licked his lips.
Hal could not help but feel a searing thrill of excitement at the picture the man painted of the delights these exotic women promised.
“Yes, this girdle cost me dearly. But it has gained me much. A priestess of these people wore it, and nothing else, on the auction block.”
The image of the nearly naked woman sprang into Hal’s mind. Pressure increased in Hal’s groin. The heat and itch increased, almost pleasurably. What was happening to him?
“You shall meet this priestess tonight. She shall teach you many delights when she places this girdle about your hips.”
“Wha... what is the purpose of this girdle?” Hal looked at it as carefully as he could before El Lobison put it away. The rough-cut sapphires, rubies, and diamonds winked at him in the dim light. They seemed to invite him to gaze into their inner depths and lose himself there.
He ripped his gaze back to the Spaniard.
“You will see, my Pendragon Niño. You shall see. Soon enough. Until then, cherish your freedom of will. This is the last you will know of it. I promise.” The Spaniard exited. His hysterical laughter echoed throughout the dungeon long after his footsteps faded.