Lamma's Night (anthology)

him. 'I'm sure no one in Greenhaven means me harm.'

'If anyone as much as says a cruel word to you, they'll have me to deal with,' the big man growled. 'And that's a promise. I don't like the idea of a pretty young thing like you, in that house all by herself...'

Lauris smothered a smile. Beneath the table, where Aelfric could not see, her nimble fingers moved in a conjuration. Aelfric's knife suddenly tore itself from his hands, twirled around in the air, and then embedded itself to the hilt in the table.

'I can take care of myself,' she smiled, enjoying the shocked admiration on the big man's face.

The night passed uneventfully. Morning brought an old woman with aching joints, who paid a plump hen for a salve to ease her pain. The afternoon saw a young man who blushed and stammered as he asked for a love potion. The days passed, and Lauris gradually began to win the villagers' trust. She had almost forgotten about the half- remembered dream and half-glimpsed shadow until one night, a fortnight or so later, when she sat curled up by the fire with a pile of books while a summer storm raged outside.

It was warm inside the house. The fire was more for light than heat. Expecting no one on an evening such as this, Lauris had spread out a blanket by the fire and lay on her stomach, naked, and was engrossed in her research.

A foot or so away, Shadow dozed. 'So many spells,' said Lauris to her familiar. He swiveled a gray ear in her direction. 'I wonder what happened to him. Surely such a powerful wizard wouldn't be taken by surprise.'

Unless the Dark itself devoured him, came a thought that did not originate inside her own head.

At once, Shadow was on his feet. His back arched, and his yellow gaze fastened on something Lauris could not see.

Lauris went bone cold. 'Make yourself known,' she whispered. But she already knew who it was—didn't she?

You grace this house, came the external thought. Such beauty... such compassion...

And then something cold as the grave itself brushed past her, through her. Lauris gasped, feeling icy tendrils of nothingness stroke her body, take shape, though remaining invisible, and become cold, strong arms, and she felt the press of lips that were not there on hers....

Gasping, she wriggled out of the specter's embrace, knowing now beyond all doubt that it was Blayne. Or at least, something that had once been Blayne. It was still here, still tied to this world, unable to pass on as it ought.

She scrambled for the book. She'd seen it, just recently, the spell that this frightening (exciting) situation demanded. She flipped through the old pages, absently noting in the back of her mind that they were fragile but not caring when they tore, until she found it.

'A Spell to Banysh Spyrits,' read the spidery lettering. Lauris closed her eyes in relief. The spell required that it be cast on Lammas Night—the night of the dying god, one of the high holy days. And Lammas was, thank the gods, only a few days hence.

Suddenly aware of her nakedness, she gathered the blanket around her body to shield her from the eyes of her visitor whom, she knew by Shadow's discomfort, had not yet departed. Lauris couldn't sense him any more, though. Where was—

And then he announced his presence a second time. As she watched, the pages of the book lying in front of her began to turn, as if flipped by a gentle wind, then stopped. Her heart nearly shaking her with its pounding, Lauris glanced down at the spell.

'A Spell to Reanimayte the Dead.'

She blinked, confused. This spell seemed identical to the first. Same list of items, the same charge that it be performed on Lammas Night—it was a duplicate. No, not quite. One word was different. One single word—the difference between true death, and new life.

I want to be with you, whispered the voice inside her head.

Lauris knew that when she accepted the privileges of wizard-kind, there came hand in hand with those advantages a terrible responsibility: to always use the magic wisely, and in the service of the Light. She had sworn at the end of her apprenticeship to help, heal, do no harm, perform no spell that was not of the Light. But neither spell indicated if it were for good or ill. She could not ignore the situation. She would go mad. She had to act—but which spell should she cast? Should she send the spirit of Blayne, clearly cut down before his time, to eternal sleep?

Or should she bring him back?

At that instant, Lauris wished with all her heart that she were married to the lowliest, crudest, drunkest peasant, with no shoes, no learning, four children to tend and a fifth swelling in her belly. It would be easier than this dreadful decision.

She bowed her head and began to cry.

From a corner of the room where he had taken refuge, Shadow stared at the unseen thing and hissed angrily.

It was fitting that Lammas Night fell when the moon was in her crone phase—dying, as the young god, as the harvest season itself, symbolically died. The winds were fierce and batted the clouds about the heavens, alternately revealing and obscuring the waning moon.

Lauris had moved the furniture into the corners to create a working space. She moved jerkily, her mouth set in a thin, grim line. She did not look like a wizard in control of the spell; she did not feel like one. Murmuring the incantation written in both the spell for banishment and reanimation, she strewed wheat flour on the floor, casting a sacred circle.

The door was open. Though the wind raged outside, it did not penetrate inside to disturb her work.

Now it begins, she thought. Oh, gods, give me the strength to make the right decision.