I had only a moment to say one thing. While she talked, I also talked. I said quickly, "Is this the witch who kidnapped me as a babe, to be raised as a captive in an alien land, surrounded by those who hate me? Is this the witch who stole my childhood and life, so that I never will know my mother's smile? Is this the witch who gave me nothing freely, but all her gifts were poisons, meant to trap us? Fire! Hear me!
Burn this witch!"
She stopped in the midst of her spell, hissing. For a moment, it was as if I could feel the fear radiating from her, as if she expected a fire to come burn her.
I heard a little quivering sigh come from her. 'That spell might have worked, oh my clever girl, if you had any of the True Art in you. But you are a Helionide, aren't you? A daughter of the Nameless Ones? Your power works another way, with crooked angles and tangles of geometry, and stepping sideways into higher worlds. Well, there is no higher world for you, my kitten. Tomorrow you shall be back in your cell, and the day after, this will be a dream, and all your clever tricks and clever escapades will be blotted out.
We'll know what to look for, next time round, and we'll flush more of you into obliv-ion. Years more.
We'll induce the shape-change, if Gren-del will do his work. How'd you like to be a seven-year-old, eh?
Oh, to be young again!"
I said, "Thief of my life, thief of my soul; I call upon the lordly dead whose house you desecrate to avenge me."
She struck me in the head with the handle of the distaff she carried. Thunk. My face was driven against the stone. I bit my lip and tasted blood.
I spat the blood onto the floor.
She said, "There are none to hear your prayers, little maid. I am old and wise in the ways of my art; this place is mine."
I said, "I ask the Lord God of Israel, the God of Jacob, and of Isaac, and of Abraham, to save my friends from bondage and oppression. Of all the gods of all the tales told in ancient times, only He upheld the weak."
She cackled. "And of all the tales, tales of that one are the most false! I knew Abraham! He was a liar and a child-murderer! If—"
A shadow stood up out of the spot of blood I had spat on the floor. I could not see it with my eyes—during this whole time, I saw nothing with my eyes, as the tomb was dark—but the strands of moral force woven in and around her distaff all curled and fled away from him, revealing the negative outline of a tall shape.
She began to scream, a high, thin, shrill noise like an animal might make. The shadow moved. I don't know what it did, but her voice diminished, and went mute.
I wondered if I had gone deaf. But no, I could hear her rattling breath hissing through her teeth. I heard her feet rustle as she took a step back, then two. I heard the tap of her distaff on the stones of the chamber floor, and the hiss of her skirts.
A cold voice spoke. In speaking, it did not breathe or pause for breath: "In life, I was Romus, son of Odysseus by Circe, set to watch the Lady Nausicaa. In that duty I failed, and was slain by cruel treason.
For many seasons the evil of Boreas kept me locked in a coffin, unable to rest, and my watchfulness was turned against my mistress, and used, not to protect, but to enslave her.
"Here is the witch who cast the spell on me, to confound my shade, and turn my fate awry.
"Now, witch, I embrace you. Feel my cold dead arm clasp about you, closer than the lover whom you poisoned. When the Dog comes, we shall both be dragged down together. Hell awaits us."
I heard a rustling noise in the chamber, a hiss of muffled horror, but I could see nothing.
The cold voice issued forth from the darkness again, like icicles shaped into words: "There is my aunt, the sister of Circe, Phaethusa, who is of my house and blood; and there is the man who set my shade to rest, and paid, of his own hand, my toll to cross the hateful Styx. Rise ye both! And speak. What is in my power to grant, although I am but a handful of wind and dust, I shall perform."
I got shakily to my feet. My head bumped stone. I could not see where I was. Maybe it was near the center of the chamber, at the dome's highest point. If so, the highest point was not very high.
Quentin said softly, quickly, "Denizen of night, can you grant me my powers again?"
The ghost said, "Not I. Only the hand that dealt the wound can cure it."
Quentin said, "Granny, I will forgive your crime against me, if you will return my staff and swear to forgive all crimes I have ever done against you, and release me from all debts, past, present, and future.
Furthermore, I want you to swear to…"
I put my hand on his arm. He could not see the strands, but I could. If he asked for too much, it would go against him. If he asked her to forswear her oath to Boggin, for example, he would be doing something that would provoke a bad reaction.
Romus said, "Speak, witch, and swear."
Mrs. Wren's cracked voice trembled. "Thy staff and wand of office I make whole, and I forgive ye all crimes and ills you have ever done me, and release you from all debts, past, present, and owing."
I saw the strands shift and sway.
I said, "I will forgive you for kidnapping me, if you will release me from any obligations of fealty, thanks, or gratitude. I am no longer your child, or anyone's. Say it."
She said, "I release you. You are free and independent. I accept your forgiveness. In addition, I will give you this gift…"
I saw the strands twitch and begin to weave together…
"No!" I said. "You are most kind, but I fear I cannot accept."
The strands parted. The web that had snared us fell away and was gone. The witch's power over the two of us had failed. I felt joy, don't doubt it; but when the strands faded, I also lost the only guide that allowed me to "see" in this utter blackness. The usefulness of this burial mound to Erichtho had also faded. The place was dark to all my senses.
Romus said, "I go now into the dreamless sleep of Elysium, where a fair white table had been spread for me. This last gift I grant. Witch: I give to you your life. Aunt Phaethusa: I grant you that you shall never be in darkness, wherever you go. Man of the Graeae: I grant you that your wand will come to your hand upon your call. Its dead spirit I breathe now back to life. It will inhabit any stalk or wand or spear or stick you shall hold in your hand, and it shall never be taken from you again, until the world ends. Anubis.
Go into the stick."
I saw the shadow move, and the utility-light, the usefulness to Quentin, of the distaff Mrs. Wren was carrying brightened a hundredfold. She screamed and threw down her staff, as if it had burned her.
Quentin reached down in the dark and picked it up.
I saw the shadow vanish.
I said, "Well, this seems pretty dark to me right now.
Quentin, is she in the boat you were in? She can't cast spells without her wand?"
"I think so."
"Mrs. Wren? How about a truce, long enough to get us all out of this burial mound… ?"
No answer. I heard motion.
Quentin tapped his staff on the ground. A pearly radiance issued from the top, where a hank of yarn was wound round and round it. There were shallow shelves to either side, where bones and dust gathered mold. Gold rings lay on the floor.
The place seemed much, much smaller in the light. The door was mouse-hole-shaped, and hardly had room to crawl into.
Quentin said, "She's making a break for it."
"Let's crawl. How fast can she go?"
So we both crawled.
When we came out into the snow again, there were columns of fire burning near the truck, which was scattered all across the slope behind. A complex-looking machine, blocky and square, made of engine parts, lenses, wires, lay on its side in a puddle of flickering gasoline. It had a big tube issuing from one end like a gun barrel, but I think that was only from the muffler.
There were craters pockmarking the snow here and there, and fantastic, bubbles of oily-colored ice, like half-buried skulls, protruding from the snow.