Well, at least the baker had given her the information she needed before he died. She could leave now and return to the safety of the Academy—dealing with the remainder of Bern’s family on the way. The Weather-Mage reached for her cloak, which was carelessly draped over the back of a chair. As she lifted it, she felt an unaccustomed weight, and touched a hard, lumpy shape hidden in the deep pocket that was sewn into the lining.
Eliseth stopped breathing and stood utterly still for a moment, the cloak forgotten in her hands. An incredible idea had suddenly occurred to her. The chalice she carried was said to be a fragment of the Caldron of Rebirth! Would it still have the power to perform the Caldron’s original function? And if it did—why, the possibilities were staggering!
With hands that shook a little from excitement, Eliseth took the grail from her pocket and filled it with water from the jug on the table. As the liquid filled the cup, it seemed to take on the properties of the tarnished interior, turning deep, viscous black without sparkle or reflection. A dark steam rose, curling, from the light-devouring surface. Holding the chalice very carefully, so as not to spill any of its contents over her hands, the Mage returned to the corpse of Bern and sprinkled a few drops over the still-smoking body.—At first, nothing seemed to be happening. There was no sign of life nor movement from the scorched, recumbent form. But then, just as Eliseth was about to turn away in disgust, she blinked, and looked again. The surface of Bern’s body was covered in a dark, moving cloud, that looked, from a distance, like a swarm of tiny, glittering black bees. The Magewoman noticed that the charred shell of his peeling skin seemed to be softening a little, and gradually turning to the paler hue of healthy flesh. Within minutes, he was recognizable as human again but, to her disgust, the baker remained as dead as ever, neither breathing nor moving.
Acting on impulse, Eliseth lifted his head and trickled a few drops of dark water from the grail into his slack mouth. A tense moment passed, and then another, while the Mage held her breath in anticipation. Without warning, Bern inhaled sharply with a strangled gasp—and leapt clumsily to his feet. “Lady—I didn’t! It wasn’t me,” he screamed. Then he blinked, and recognition returned to his eyes. “What happened?” he demanded, forgetting, in his confusion, to address the Mage with any mark of respect. “What was I doing?”
Eliseth, already framing an angry response, bit off her half-formed reply. Her eyes widened with shock as she realized that Bern, after his first, shrieked protest of innocence, had not spoken a word aloud. She could see into his mind!
She could see much more clearly once she realized what was happening, and began to focus all her powers of concentration. There, through the murky roil that constituted Mortal thoughts, was the baker’s intense bafflement as he puzzled in vain to retrieve what had happened during the weird blank spell which had left him unconscious on the floor. She saw his horror and fear as he cast his mind back to realize that someone had tried to murder the Mage—and that only one person could have been responsible.
Alissana! Eliseth took the image straight out of the Mortal’s mind. So it was Bern’s accursed woman who’d had the temerity to make an attempt on her life!—The Mage’s wrath boiled over beyond all controlling—and suddenly, with a wrenching change of perspective, she found herself looking at herself. Eliseth gasped, and flung her hands up to her face—but they were not her hands, nor was it her own features that she could feel beneath her fingers. She was seeing the room through Bern’s eyes!
Acting instinctively, Eliseth clamped her will down upon Bern’s weak and cowardly Mortal thoughts, and felt them streaming through her mental grasp like grains of sand through an hourglass. She discovered that the sensation differed from that of occupying another’s body, where the victim’s individuality was thrust aside and the personality of the intruder took over.—In this case, the baker’s thoughts were still his own—the Mage simply controlled them, as though his mind was a restless horse that she could restrain and guide with the reins of her will. With a thrill of delight, she realized that he was actually unaware of her presence within him. The sensation of control was exhilarating, and Eliseth wondered just how far her hold extended. Tentatively at first, she began to probe the limits of her newfound power.
There was no risk of damage or danger to Eliseth’s own body—she seated it carefully in a chair out of harm’s way. Soon, she discovered that all she needed to control were the so-called higher functions of the baker’s mind, and the automatic processes of his body took care of themselves. For a time she amused herself by making him move around the room and perform simple tasks.—Then, when she felt ready, she decided to put her hold over her puppet to the test. Riding the web of Bern’s thoughts like a lurking spider, she turned him toward the stairs—and the rooms where his family slept.
5
The Undead
Little Alissa, named after her mother, awoke in the darkness. She had slept uneasily that night, her dreams disturbed by the presence of the cold-eyed woman with the silver hair who had come to stay. Though she was not usually a timid child (she was a big girl now—six years old—and had to look after her little brother, Tolan), there was something about the stranger that made Alissa want to run away and hide. She was grateful for the reassuring presence of her mother, who, as the visitor had taken over the best bedchamber, was sleeping on a pallet on the floor of the children’s room.
The noise that had awakened Alissa came again—the stealthy shuffle of a furtive footfall on the stairs. Trembling, the girl huddled deeper beneath her blankets, and hugged her rag doll tightly. She heard the harsh, repetitive hiss of ragged breathing outside the door. Feeling slightly foolish, Alissa relaxed her stranglehold on the doll. It was only Dad, coming to bed. How could she have forgotten him? But as she listened to his fumbling efforts with the door latch, she shuddered, and tensed again with fear. He must have been drinking too much wine again—and she knew all too well, with a sad wisdom that belied her brief span of years, what the result would be.
Most of the time, Alissa’s father was just a strict, stern master of the little household. He worked hard and expected his family, children included, to do their share—or woe betide them. Occasionally, however, he would spend the evening in a tavern, or sit up late on his own drinking wine—and then there would be trouble. On too many nights Alissa had crept out of bed, disturbed by the sound of blows and muffled cries, to watch or listen unseen, her heart hammering with fear, as he beat her mother. Too many times in her short life had she been thrashed during his drunken rages, or clouted as a result of his savage temper in the mornings that followed. Usually, the children’s room was a sanctuary when he was drunk. If they were out of his sight, he often didn’t bother them. Tonight, however, there would be no escaping him, unless ...
The door swung open, spilling a wedge of light into the room, but Alissa, shivering in her thin nightdress, was already under the bed, rag doll and all.—It was very dusty under there. Alissa put her hand over her face and breathed shallowly, hoping to subdue the tickling in her nose. Peeping out from her hiding place, she saw a pair of feet in sturdy boots shuffling unsteadily toward the pallet on the wall, where her mother, tired out from a hard day’s work, slept on, oblivious. Hoping against hope that her father would be in one of his better moods and just go right to sleep, the child inched her way nearer the edge of the bed and craned her neck to see better.