Witch In Charge - Celia Kyle Page 0,34
foot belonged to the naked figure of a woman holding a skull in one hand, a snake coiled on her arm. The impenetrable language jumbled around this goddess on all sides, in a mesmerizing tangle.
“Is it…Sumerian?”
Owyn coughed out a tiny laugh at her question. “Sumerian? I really must have a word with Professor Fulvia in Ancient Languages.”
There was just a hint of disdain in his voice, but when Kelly looked up at him with genuinely curious eyes, he softened.
“It’s Elurial. One of the oldest written languages there is.”
“It’s clearly pre-Etruscan,” she said, hunching down over it. “Given its reliance on symbols, it actually looks closer to Indus than anything.”
Even as the sentence left her mouth, she wondered how the hell she knew all that.
Owyn gave her a look she didn't recognize. “Impressive, Miss Holloway,” he said.
No wonder she didn't recognize his expression. He actually was impressed with her, which didn't usually happen on an academic level. Party level? Definitely. Smartypants level? Never.
“In full truth, most scholars are unfamiliar with Elurial. There are only a handful of these samples remaining, so it’s become a pet specialty of mine.”
“What is this supposed to be?”
His eyes twinkled slightly at her curiosity, and she felt the first prickle of complicity between them.
“One of the oldest known curse dissolutions. The figure of the woman is Suphilia, the goddess-enchantress of their time. Unlike many such figures, she was more than myth. Far from it, actually.”
Her eyes never left the document, scanning every inch of it, trying to understand it. “What does it say?”
“Finally found something to capture your interest, eh?”
Kelly glanced up at him, blushing a bit at being called out, but he wasn't wrong. And he didn't seem to be giving her a hard time at all, just asking a valid question. The truth was that she'd grown very interested in curse breaking all of a sudden, and going back to the root of how curses were lifted might give her a toe-hold on her own problem.
With a curt nod, Owyn jabbed a finger at the lower corner of the text. “We read from left to right, top to bottom, but the Elurians did the opposite. If you tried to read this the way we habitually do…”
He put his hands up as if to say, ‘woe betide the person who tries.’ Then, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose, he braced a hand on the desk and got to work.
“The theta-like glyph is the foundation of their language. It means life. Follow that and you can get a rough sense of how it all falls out. The snake represents the spirit. See the way it coils toward, rather than away from, the skull? That signifies that Suphilia is imparting life rather than taking it away.”
As he explained the rest of the document, his enthusiasm grew, and Kelly found herself more and more engrossed. These twenty minutes at the hip of a true master had been more informative than an entire semester of any class she’d ever dawdled through. It was impossible to resist.
“This last bit that we can see,” he said, his finger reaching the frayed upper corner, “is just tipping into the resolution. How the spell comes to a close has been the subject of debate for centuries.”
“What do you think?”
Again, the twinkle. He beckoned her with a crooked finger, and they went to one of the many shelves of books in his main office. There, just behind his chair, he drew out a slender volume and placed it in her hands.
A True and Complete Explication of the Suphilic Resolution: A Case Study. Kelly held it as if it were as precious as the fragment itself.
“My thesis,” Owyn said.
It was a statement of fact, devoid of either pride or boasting. A sudden surge of envy boiled up through Kelly, and she ignited with the desire to specialize in something beyond how to have a good time.
“I wish I could try my hand at something like that.” Kelly gripped the book in her hands hard. “Casting something between the serpent and the skull.”
The fervency of her wish surprised even her.
“All right then,” Owyn said, with his usual brisk efficiency. He took the book away, pulled a toothless old skull off his shelf and dropped it unceremoniously into her hands. “Cast. Or, better still, relieve.”
Kelly blinked in surprise.
“What was his curse?” she stammered.
Owyn merely shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her.”
Kelly almost chickened out, but thought of Ronun. Closing her eyes, she opened up her