Before a streak of twilight amber even breathed into the sky, I was home again. Irmhild had sent Weistreim along with the crate she’d filled with the items necessary for making the amulet. I carried a basket of preserved meats she had sent along as well. She had reminded me twice to eat this, all of it, before commencing the project, as I needed my strength for the ordeal and it would be the last meal I could eat until the amulet was made. The invocation that would imbue the amulet with its powers rang as fresh in my mind as when she’d shared it. This runic verse was a magical incantation that she had taught me by singing it over and over while she had tattooed the runic symbol for Carina onto the inner flesh of my left thigh.
So, at Weistreim’s departure, I ate, then set the loaded crate beside my desk. Before evening was fully set in, I drew water from the well at the back of the cabin and filled the oaken tub in the house. When it was filled, I bolted the door and undressed. When I was clean, I dried well but did not dress. And starting a fire in the hearth, I fetched a large, clean kettle from the pantry and set this in the center of my desk.
From the crate I took out a pouch of thick muslin. The gold dust that stuffed it was worth a fortune. But this I poured into the kettle, spitting into it to make it mine, as Irmhild had said. Then the kettle I hung from the iron hook in the warming fireplace. Three vials I took from the crate and set these upon the hearth. The last item I fetched was the birch spoon I had cut and whittled to Irmhild’s specifications.
One of the items I had brought home was a small wood hammer I had whittled as the old woman had waited outside. It had been christened with my jism, and this impregnated the hammer amulet, as were the ritual hammers that the Urdhel menfolk wielded when they battled vampires. At Irmhild’s instruction, I had pricked my palm with a needle. With my blood I had drawn upon the hammer head the runes she specified, and with this accomplished, I went on to whittle the handle to a sharp and useful point. But the practical and magical purposes for this weapon awaited the future. So I left it in the crate for the time being while I turned my attention to the pressing matters.
I laid the spoon upon the stones of the hearth as I opened the first vial. A gelatinous liquid it was, the color of cobalt, and before pouring it, I spit into the vial too. As I upturned the vial, the liquid dribbled slowly over the gold and formed glassy teardrops in the dust. Another vial contained seawater, and as water is free and mother of all life, I refrained from claiming it with my spit. When it was added, I uncorked the final vial. My blood was drawn by Irmhild’s leeches, and as such, was already claimed. With it combined, I kneeled, and with my right hand grasped the spoon. And holding this over the mouth of the kettle, I inhaled and uttered the incantation for the first time.
Seventy times I stirred the concoction with my right hand, seventy times I repeated the words. I thought of Carina. Not as the specter as she had come to me the night before; no, but the living girl who had captivated me with that becoming blush, which had so attractively concealed her earthly desires from the world. With the last stir, I laid the spoon atop the kettle again and lay down in my bed.
For some time I reminisced of things I had longed to do with her—and to her—before, that was, bloodless propriety stayed my hand. I envisioned her naked body as it danced on the open grass, and the branding touch of her lips upon my throat as she had pleaded that last day we’d spoken. My desire to take her in living flesh was almost unbearable as my hand sought my manhood. My scrotum was tender from Irmhild’s red-hot needles, but my need was thoughtless to this. It was the calculated, slow strokes that were stressful, the necessity to restrain my mounting pleasure. But I succeeded in building my pleasure to the point of ejaculation and stopping before my passion released.
As Irmhild had suggested, I immediately drank a cup of cool water and then relieved myself in the chamber pot. I checked on the kettle before retiring, to find the concoction just beginning to bubble. And throwing on just a small piece of wood to keep the hearth flame alive, I settled back into bed.
I was almost asleep when there sounded a rattling on the shingles. At once I sat up, not daring to let my will slip away into the shadow of dreams where I would be helpless to another attack. Now I recited the second incantation Irmhild had taught me. The command of hindrance, words that would keep Carina from entering the house, without diminishing in the slightest her desire to do so.
The spell of mastery, Irmhild had explained…and as I repeated it, my voice grew in boldness and clarity. The rattling turned into an agitated scraping. But as the magical words resounded through the room, the scraping paused a moment or two. Then there came a knock at the door, as clear and familiar as if it were Weistreim come with breakfast. It sounded once, twice, then continuously. A chilly sweat filmed over my flesh and my loins pulsated warmly, yet I ignored these sensations and concentrated on the incantation.
After a time, the knock died away. The words did not falter any less than when Carina had forced the alchemist secret; and this was wise, for soon I heard Carina whimpering from the other side of the door. This sublime note of abandonment and feared rejection in the sound might have at another time swayed my course. Now, instead, I listened raptly only to my own voice and took dispassionate satisfaction in the command projected.
Slowly, her whimper faded away.