“Then speaking the spell—”
“May restore him.” Berak shrugged with true elven fatalism. “Or it may not. But either way, you must make his sacrifice worth it”
“I will,” Kevin said softly. And I’ll make it up to you, Master Aidan. “But there’s something I must do, here and now. Take these, please.” He gave Berak all but one of the remaining copies he’d made of the spell. “At least this way it won’t be lost with me.”
“What ... is this thing?” Berak peered at the parchment. “ Elfish, yet not quite elfish ....”
“It is, we pray, the spell that shall put an end to Carlotta,” Naitachal said. “Berak, if you will permit it, we will ride with you. And together you and I and Kevin can set about deciphering the thing.”
“Why?” the minstrel asked suspiciously. “Why Kevin?”
The bardling sighed. “Because the spell’s Bardic Magic. But I can’t read elfish. And unless you and Naitachal can tell me how to pronounce the glyphs properly, I’ll never be able to sing them.”
“You!” Berak glanced sharply from Kevin to Naitachal, then began speaking very rapidly in the elven tongue.
Naitachal held up a hand. “Kevin and I have gone over all the dangers. I agree, it’s an incredibly risky thing for him to try. But neither you nor I are qualified to handle Bardic Magic. Kevin is.”
“But he’s not a Bard! The boy is just a bardling!”
“Still, I’m as close to a Bard as we’re going to find in such a short time—And we’ve wasted enough of that time already. Will you help us, Berak?”
“So-o! The cub grows fangs! Yes, youngling, I will help you. And pray for you as well,” he added wryly.
It wasn’t an easy decipherment. As the wagons rolled and rattled their way toward Count Volmar’s castle, the two elves spent much of the next day bent over the parchment, arguing “It says teatal,” or “No, no, that has to read sentaila, not sentailach!”
When they were satisfied with each glyph, they made Kevin recite it till they were sure he had the intonation correct, then sing it to the corresponding note.
“When do I get to put the whole thing together?”
“You don’t!” Naitachal said in alarm. “Do you want to trigger the spell here and now?”
“Uh ... no. But if I can’t rehearse the spell now, how am I going to know I’ve got it right?”
The Dark Elf grinned without humor. “Therein,” he said drily, “lies the adventure.”
“But I think you do have the component glyphs properly memorized,” Berak added in what was presumably meant to be a comforting tone. “Naitachal, there is one unwoven thread to all this that bothers me.”
“Eh?”
“You say Carlotta is disguising herself as the count’s niece. Well then, what happened to the real Charina? There was one, after all ...”
The Dark Elf shuddered as though a sudden cold draft had hit him—”I think I know what happened,” he said at last. “I...just could not bear to ...” Naitachal turned sharply away. “I was afraid to cast this spell. Afraid that I might find myself instead tempted to drag Eliathanis back from—I didn’t dare, do you understand?”
“I do,” Kevin murmured. “But Naitachal, what are you saying? That—that the real Charina is ... that Carlotta ... that Charina ... Powers, what if her spirit’s enslaved?”
“I thought of chat.” The Dark Elf slumped in resignation. “So be it I will do what I must—Berak, I will need a clear, sheltered place this evening, and as few distractions as possible.” The White Elf nodded. “You shall have that”
The night there in the forest grove was very dark, the only light coming from the single small campfire built between the vee formed by the two wagons. The troupe was hidden in those wagons, or out in the forest, but when Kevin and Lydia would have gone with them, Naitachal called out:
“Wait You, as well, Berak. Say nothing, do nothing, only sit where you are until I signal you to leave. I will need your presences as an anchor.”
An anchor to what? To life? Kevin felt a cold chill steal through him. What if Naitachal was dragged over the border into death? How could they possibly pull him back?
But the Dark Elf didn’t seem particularly worried, though his face, picked out in stark relief by the dancing flames, was grim and his stance tense. Without warning, he began a chant, so softly Kevin almost couldn’t hear him. Berak heard, though; the bardling could feel him shudder.
Somehow, soft though the words were, they weren’t quite obeying natural law. They weren’t fading. Instead, like so many layers of woven doth, each new phrase fell atop the one before it, never fading, slowly filling up the night, slowly filling up the very air, calling, demanding, summoning ...
And suddenly they were no longer alone in the clearing. Kevin was only dimly aware of Lydia’s gasp, only dimly heard his own sharply drawn in breath. Lost in a mix of amazement and terror, he stared rill his eyes ached at a pale glow all at once there above the fire, slowly condensing into the figure of a girl ...
Charina’s ghost ... She wasn’t as extravagantly lovely as her counterfeit Her hair was pale yellow, not spun gold, her face merely pretty rather than beautiful. And yet she was so much the more charming for not being perfect that Kevin felt his heart ache as though it would break, felt his cheeks suddenly wet with the loss of What Might Have Been.
“Who are you?” Naitachal said in the human tongue, his voice the essence of gentleness.
“I ... was ... I am ...” The ghostly blue eyes widened in fright. “] don’t remember ... Why am I here? Where am I?”
“You must remember. Who are you?”
“I...I...can’t ...”
“You must—Who are you?”
“I can’t’”
Kevin ached to shout out, “Leave her alone! Can’t you see she really doesn’t know?” But somehow he managed to keep from making a sound, and Naitachal continued relentlessly:
“Who are you?”
“Charina!” the ghost screamed all at once. “I am Charina!”
The Dark Elf’s head drooped, and Kevin could hear him gasp for breach. After a moment, Naitachal continued, his voice gentle once more:
“Where are you, Charina?”
“I... don’t know ... It’s so dark ... dark and cold ... so cold ... I don’t want to know!”
“Never mind,” the Dark Elf crooned. “Go back. Back. See the day as it was. The day before the darkness. Do you see it?”
Her frightened face seemed to tighten. “Yes.”
“Where are you, Charina?”
“The castle. My uncle’s castle. I am up on the ramparts and—oh, look at the pretty thing!”
“What are you doing, Charina?”
“Leaning forward to see the—No! No! Please, don’t! No!”
The sheer terror of that scream cut Kevin to the heart. Oh, Naitachal, don’t! Let her be!
But the Dark Elf continued softly, “Who is it, Charina? What is he doing?”
“Uncle! Uncle, please! I won’t tell anyone! You don’t have to kill me!”
“Who killed you, Charina?”
“No, no, there’s been a mistake, it’s all a mistake. I’m alive and—”