Dad put the lantern down on the floor, beside the pallet. He stooped, and as the golden wash of lamplight illuminated his features, Alissa thought he looked strange, somehow. His expression was preoccupied and distant, as though he listened to some faint sound, far away. Her mother stirred, disturbed by the light, and rolled over onto her back. Something glittered in Dad’s hand.—Alissa muffled a shriek as the knife flashed down, burying itself to the hilt in her mother’s chest. With an odd, gurgling noise, the woman convulsed, then went limp. Alissa, numb with horrified disbelief, desperately wanted to look away, but could not. It was as though she had been turned to stone. This just couldn’t be happening—it couldn’t be her own father who was doing this dreadful thing! The blood—the blood was everywhere, reeking, darkly gleaming in the lamplight.
With a jerk, Dad wrenched the knife out from between Mother’s ribs and turned toward her little brother, who was awake now and howling in his cot. Only then was the spell of horror broken. Alissa realized, with a shock that sent a bolt of ice shearing down her spine, that she would be next. Dad turned his back on her, the knife raised high to strike. Alissa rolled out from underneath the bed. Little Tolan’s high, thin scream drowned her footsteps as she raced toward the door—and then the sound cut off abruptly. Dad, whirling, lunged toward her with an incoherent shout—but Alissa was out and hurtling down the stairs before he could reach her. She reached the outer door a scant few strides ahead of him and pulled frantically at the handle—but the door was locked, and the big key turned too stiffly for a child to manage.
Alissa shrieked as the wild-eyed figure she had once known as her father loomed over her, eyes wild and vacant in his spattered face, his knife, dripping gore, held high in one clenched and bloody fist. As he swooped down on her she ducked beneath his clutching hands and dodged away, taking the only route that was left open to her—the short passageway that led into the bakery—though she knew that outside door would be locked too. Bern, hot in pursuit, tried to turn too quickly and his blood-soaked boots slipped on the polished tiles of the hallway. Alissa heard him curse, and recognized the thud as he fell. It would give her a moment—a single moment—in which to hide herself.
Gasping for breath, the child ran into the bakery and looked wildly around for a place of concealment. The only place that seemed to offer a refuge was the big oven, cold now that the fire had gone out. Without another thought, Alissa ran across the room and climbed into the bread-scented interior. She slammed the door behind her just in time and huddled in the darkness, still clutching her rag doll and scarcely daring to breathe.
Eliseth, her awareness ensconced like a parasite within Bern’s mind, used the baker’s eyes to scan the room and scowled in vexation. Curse the child! Where in perdition had it gone?
She tried the door. Still locked. Well, in that case the misbegotten little brat couldn’t be far away. At first she thought of the closets until she gleaned from Bern’s memory that they were too well stocked to provide enough space for a hiding place—then her eye fell on the ovens. One of them wasn’t large enough to hold a child, but surely the other ...
The baker moved as though he were sleepwalking: conscious, but with no volition of his own. He made no effort to fight the Mage as she guided him across the room to the oven and had him wedge the heavy door shut with the shank of a broom. The ashes of the fire were still warm, and it took no time at all to rekindle a blaze. As Bern piled on more wood, Eliseth heard Alissa shrieking. Testing her control of the baker, she forced him to stand there and listen to the death of his little daughter. It took a long time for the screams to stop.
Leaving instructions in Bern’s mind that rendered him immobile for a time, Eliseth rummaged through the house, picking out items she thought might be of use to her. Bern’s small hoard of gold she took, and blankets, quilts, provisions, candles, and anything else that could be found in the bakery to make her life more comfortable in the decaying Academy. Sadly, the baker’s wife had been much shorter than the Mage, so her clothes were useless, but Eliseth helped herself to several pairs of stockings, some gloves, and a thick woollen cloak. Although it was too short, it would keep out the worst of the cold until she could get another.
Eliseth heaped her selections on the floor by the back door and returned to the Academy, unencumbered and unseen, by the swiftest route. Once there, she extended her consciousness toward Bern, for she could not control her own body and someone else’s at the same time, and had been forced to leave him down in the city. It was far easier to find the baker than she had expected. In the dank squalor of the Academy kitchens, she lit a fire, then filled the chalice with water and squatted down by the hearth to look into the cup by the light of the flickering flames. Their link, through the Mage’s control of the grail, was such that she seemed almost to be drawn to him. As soon as she thought of the baker, she saw him in the water, lifting the body of his only son out of a tangle of blood-soaked blankets.
Bern bowed his head over the little corpse, and wept.
“Gods, how could this have happened?” he cried in anguish. “How could you let this happen?”
Eliseth shrugged, and insinuated herself into the baker’s mind once more. She forced him to leave the bodies of his family and sent him downstairs to harness up the horse and load her looted implements and provisions on to the cart. Then she sent him back indoors with a bottle of lamp oil and a long stick from the woodpile that would serve as a torch. For many reasons, it would be best to get rid of the evidence.
With his will under the Mage’s iron control, Bern drove his horse and cart up the hill to the Academy, laden with goods that had once been his own hard-earned possessions and were now Eliseth’s spoils. Behind him, the flames of the burning bakery roared up into the night, sending a swirl of sparks drifting up toward the sky like lost, searching souls.
Eliseth made herself comfortable as best she could in the hard wooden chair, and watched the flames licking the sooty stones of the fireplace as the twilight deepened outside the window in the Archmage’s suite. It seemed that Miathan must have set some kind of self-renewing spell on his chambers. The rooms, located high above the damp lower stories of the tower, were in by far the most habitable condition—and it was just as well, because the Mage was exhausted. Throughout the daylight hours, she had been concentrating hard to control the mind of her puppet as he swept and scrubbed the chambers, throwing out anything that was soiled or decayed beyond saving. Eliseth sighed and stretched. By the Gods—it had been almost as wearying as doing the work herself!
The Mage poured herself another glass of wine, and picked fastidiously at a platter of bread and cheese. It had been worth all her effort to create this haven. None of the Mortals would dare come near the Academy—they were afraid of the place, and she would make sure they stayed that way. For the first time since she had come into this strange future, Eliseth relaxed. She was safe here,and now she could be reasonably comfortable while she worked out the best way to restore the Magefolk rule to Nexis.
Her possession of Bern was an excellent beginning, and boded well for the future. Eliseth could get into his mind at any time without his being aware of her presence. She could see through his eyes and manipulate his actions from a safe distance, and afterward, she had discovered, the baker had no recollection that his mind had been under the control of another. A slow smile of triumph spread itself over Eliseth’s face. What a weapon this chalice had turned out to be! Miathan had been an utter fool not to discover the potential that lay within it—but thank the Gods he had not. It was the solution to all her problems. Not only would she gain her revenge on Vannor and his wretched daughter, but she would rule Nexis, and those stupid Mortals wouldn’t even know it!