you knew it would be utterly horrible.”
The woman asked: “What is your name?” Her voice was soft and sweet as the smell of decay.
Gaynor did not want to reply, but she knew she must. “Gaynor.”
“That sounds like a modern contraction. The name I knew was Gwennifer. How interesting. So you are Gwennifer.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Playing the idiot, is that it? It makes no difference. I used you before; I shall use you again. You were always invaluable to my plans. I gather you have befriended Morcadis now. Your folly—or hers. Where is she?”
“I think—outside the circle . . .”
“That’s no answer. Tell me the truth: the magic binds you. Where is she?”
The pressure of her insistence was almost suffocating Gaynor; she struggled to breathe. Half choking, she could manage no other response. “Outside . . . the circle . . .”
And then Morgus realized what had happened. Two circles, two spells, drawn together in a single magical bond . . . “Uvalé!” she screamed, and a gap appeared along the rim where the flame flicker went out. She raised her hand. “Come to me!”
Gaynor felt herself impelled toward the break in the circle. She knew that to leave the spellground would be disastrous, but she could not seem to resist. Outside the perimeter, the dark shrank to normal proportions, becoming sweeping curtains against a paneled wall. A cat waited there, stone still, its hairless body blotched black and white. She thought the expression on its wizened face was one of total malevolence. Unable to stop herself, she set foot out of the magic, into the room.
The sudden cry behind her snapped the compulsion like overstrained elastic. “Xiss! Stop! I command you!” A hand seized her wrist, wrenching her back into the circle with such violence that she stumbled and fell. She tried to rise, clutching her rescuer. Outside the perimeter, Morgus was swaying from side to side like a cobra about to strike. Her eyes slitted; her mouth widened into a smile without laughter, all hunger and teeth. In front of her, the goblin cat began to prowl to and fro along the edge of the break, as though searching for that weakening in the barrier that would allow ingress.
“Morcadis,” said the witch, very quietly, and “Fernanda Morcadis,” louder now and clear as a chime.
“You were looking for me,” said Fern. “I have come.” She was breathless from the abrupt translocation, thrown off balance by Gaynor’s desperate grip.
“I like your friend,” Morgus went on, her manner lightening deceptively. “I knew her of old: she was always venial in sin, soft-hearted and soft-headed. A liability to all who stood by her. I shall enjoy questioning her again.”
“She is young,” said Fern, puzzled. “You have met before only briefly, in a dream.”
“Youth!” Morgus said scornfully. “An illusion. Do I not look young to you? Everything is reborn, recycled, remade, even the spirit. She is Gwennifer the adulteress, though she has grown very plain. She cannot change.”
“The world of Time has made you mad,” said Fern. “You are seeing old enemies in new faces. I thought I was the one you feared.”
“Feared?” Morgus’s tone was like silk. “Oh, no, my most diligent pupil. You betrayed me and tried to kill me, but all you achieved was to initiate my regenesis. I used to think I could not return without you, and indeed you have brought me back. You have made me invulnerable, unkillable. I have the power of the Gift and the power of the Tree and the power of the River. What have you got with which to challenge me? Nothing. I will take your little Gwennifer and sew up her lips with her own hair, and stitch back her eyelids, and she will have to watch the fate I will prepare for you, and it will be long and slow, and before I am done—”
“I will beg for death,” Fern interrupted. “I know. They always say that.” She was afraid now, and angry at her own fear, and every bit of emotion showed beneath the bravado. The circle closed at a word, rekindling to a glittering thread, but it made a flimsy barricade against the might of the witch queen. Fern knew she had only seconds to take them back—back to the cellar in Soho—and she tried to gather her remaining power, her Gift, but instinct was failing her and she had little idea what to do, or how. Morgus made a convoluted gesture and uttered a strange hoarse sound deep in