The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,70
be there, waiting. Get other wizards, get as many as you can. I can open the gate, but you’ll have to get me through. Help me, Shavus, please. Get me out of here. Please get me out.”
He opened his eyes, staring into the heart of the Dark Well, emptying his mind and focusing it with all the strength within him, all the strength he could raise.
He saw nothing.
He closed his eyes, gathering his strength again, patiently willing himself not to think, not to feel. Then he slowly repeated all he had said, conjuring in his mind the image of himself standing on the altar of the Dancing Stones at midnight, surrounded by the Void magic of the Spiracle, the power of the solstice and the leys, arms outstretched, waiting...
And repeated it again, the strain of it hurting him now, grinding at his bones. And again saw nothing to tell him that he wasn’t just a frightened little man standing with obsessive exactness in a scribbled network of chalked lines on the floor, praying to an empty room.
In other words, he thought, mad.
It was as if he’d stood chin-deep in the ocean and had the rock upon which he was balanced tip suddenly beneath his feet; he felt despair close over him, cold and fathoms deep. A headache clamped like a steel band around his temples, and he lowered his outstretched arms, cramped and trembling, to his sides.
He has to have heard me, he thought, sinking, exhausted, to his knees. Shavus has to have heard. Sitting on his heels, he carefully removed his glasses, pressed his throbbing forehead with his hands.
Tally came to his mind, lying by the fire in the green jeweled gown of the Sea-King’s daughter—the animal warmth and delight of his sons’ small hands pulling at his robe as they cornered him in play. For a moment he saw the matte blue silences of the Drowned Lands under the phosphorous of the rising moon. For ten weeks he had worked very hard at not feeling pain. Now, his defenses spent, the pain came, wave after wave of it, breaking him like a child’s driftwood fortress under advancing tide.
He bowed down over his hands, hurting with a deep, gouged ache that was worse than any physical pain he had ever undergone. Hugging himself as if the pain were in fact physical and could be eased by physical means, he doubled over, fighting to stay silent, fighting to hold it in, a chubby, shabby little man in his worn sweatshirt and faded trousers, alone in the dark on the edge of the abyss.
After a long time the pain eased a little, and he knew then that it was close to dawn. The thought of slipping back to his room, of going on with another day, was physically repugnant to him—easier just to roll down onto his side on the stone floor and sleep. But after a few minutes he got to his feet and staggered, knees jellied, to push open the door.
Sara had made her way across the cellar to the stairs that led up to the hall above, where she stood listening, the two-foot iron rod of an old mop-bucket wringer lever in one hand. Above them the Schloss was absolutely silent now, save for the metallic whisper of a wireless turned down low. The guards would be catching a little shut-eye in the watch room. It was a dangerous time, since they’d be guilty enough to wake at a whisper. He breathed, “Sara...” and saw her turn sharply, straining her eyes to pierce the inky dark.
As softly as he could—warily, because of the club she held—he glided toward her over the damp stone floor. “Let’s get the boxes put back,” he whispered, still staying well out of range until he saw her positively identify his voice and relax. Then he took her arm and led her back to where the flashlight beam couldn’t possibly be seen from above.
“You want this locked up again?” she asked softly, touching the padlock. “I can put it like this but not snib it closed. That way you can get in here again if you need to.”
“I will need to,” he said. “But von Rath’s getting more suspicious of me every day. If he finds it open, he’ll know it’s me tampering and will probably destroy the Well. I’ll need your help getting in here again, two, maybe three more times...”
She muttered something really terrible in Polish and helped him lift each box