current state, that merely gratified him. He sat down in his own chair and began to tug at his own boots. With only one hand and a hook, it was heavy going and he was very clumsy. He felt his face flush with effort and embarrassment but he was not going to start asking for help now. He continued to tug at the boot, angry that there were no servants here.
She backed away into the corner, as if afraid, which annoyed him even more. When had he ever given her cause to be afraid of him? He had been nothing but the soul of gentleness to her. Too gentle perhaps if she could behave like this in front of him.
'What is it?' she asked. 'What's wrong?'
'There's nothing wrong,' Sardec almost shouted, aware that there was something very wrong. Was it the disease? Had it already started to affect him or was it simply his own emotional reaction to the strain.
'You are not normally like this.' He let out his breath in a long sigh. Calmness slowly returned.
'You are right,' he said. He could not quite bring himself to ask for forgiveness. It would not have been seemly for a Terrarch of his rank to admit that such a thing was necessary to a human. 'You are right.'
She rushed over to him and took his fleshly hand. 'What has happened?'
He told her of the ghoul bite and of the Terrarch woman in the graveyard.
'I do not believe anything will happen to you,' she said.
'I wish I was so certain.'
'The surgeon seemed to think the chances were very low.'
'The same was true for the lady at the mausoleum.'
'You must not let this get you down. You are brave. Do not let it trouble your spirit. Why worry about what might never happen?' She smiled at him, and he could see that she was worried about him already, and that touched him. Oddly enough the need to reassure her began to take the edge off his own concerns. He forced himself to nod, and say, 'You are right. And forgive me for yelling at you earlier. I did not mean to.'
'There is nothing to forgive,' she said. He knew otherwise. She would have to forgive him a lot, if only she knew his thoughts.
Rik came to the conclusion that he did not have much of a choice in this matter. If he was going to return home to his flesh, he knew he was going to have to brave the dangerous path. He was going to have to forge a link with the source of power they had found here. He said so.
Very well, extend your hand into the vortex.
He reached out to touch the swirling cyclone of magical energy. He did not know what to expect. Fire and pain perhaps but what he got was like nothing he had prepared himself for. There was pain and there were other things, a welling joy so intense it made him want to weep, a sense of well-being, of peace and calm that he never wanted to let go. He sensed his consciousness expanding outwards and away, like ripples where a stone has broken the surface of a lake. It was like touching the mind of God.
The pain and the power bubbled into him, cleansing him, showing him the things that lurked in the shadows of his own mind. Somehow they did not seem so frightening now that he had looked upon them; in fact they seemed small and petty, just like himself. He felt the urge to open his mind, to let the knowledge and the wonder flow through him, to become one with the cosmic all, to let his spirit disintegrate into a million fragments and be absorbed by the universe. Perhaps this was what death was like, he thought, and if that was so, it was not such a bad thing.
He could let go of himself, of his petty fears and ambitions. Who was he anyway, and what did he matter in the great scheme of things. His own egotism was what crippled him. All he had to do was let go of it and fade. It would bring him peace and an end to all struggles and all pain. The power mounted in him, and he began to hear singing, like that of a choir of angels. He knew that if only he let go of himself, let the beauty of those ethereal voices sweep over him and cleanse him, he could become like them, he could join them in bliss forever.
Somewhere in the depths of his mind a small nagging voice countered the singing. He told himself that what he was hearing was false, the lure of demons and of death. In his soul, he did not really believe that but the resistance was important. Part of him did not want to surrender, part of him wanted to live, to complete his business among the living.
He tried to block out the singing, to resist its lure, to pull his hand from the spell vortex. He found that he could not. He was locked in place by that siren song and the source of it. Fear tickled the edges of his mind. A note of discord entered the triumphant harmony. The music did not seem quite so overpoweringly spiritual.
He let the fear speak to him. He tried to draw strength from it, and from the anger that followed inevitably in its wake. Fear and anger, the two emotions that dominated his thinking, and that had defined him for as long as he had lived. He tapped into the memories they brought back, of the beatings in the orphanage, and the constant fight for survival in the streets of Sorrow. He remembered his anger at Sabina who had betrayed him, and his terror of Antonio, the fat gang-lord who was her lover and whom they had both betrayed. He remembered the battles he had fought with the Foragers, and his rage and terror when Sardec had ordered him flogged. Slowly a bit at a time, he rebuilt himself, first as an engine of anger and fear, and then he filled in the gaps, remembering his small joys and pleasures, and the hoarded scraps of good experiences that had come to him.
He remembered the good times with Sabina, and with Rena. He recalled his friendships with Leon and the Foragers, and even in a strange way with Asea. Slowly he came closer to being himself, and further away from those seductive voices. Inch by inch he pulled his hand from the vortex, and he noticed that it was limned with fire, and traceries of light connected him to the thing.
I thought you were lost.
I think I was, he replied, but I have found myself now. He was not sure what he had become, but he was sure that he had changed.
It is time to return.
Chapter Ten
Rik looked up and saw a white sun overhead. Slowly, it came to him that it was carved from plaster and set in the ceiling of his room in the Palace. He felt tired and weak and his hand hurt. He recalled what had happened in the spirit realm, as he would have recalled a dream or a nightmare. He tried to sit up but the strength drained out of him. As he slumped back onto the thick goose-feather filled pillows he saw that Asea sat on the far side of the chamber, in a claw footed ornamental chair. She put the book she was reading down, and said; 'The first time is always the most difficult. Some never recover from it.'
'I will,' said Rik. 'At least I think I am starting to.'
She smiled. 'That is good.'
'What really happened? Was it a dream? Did I really visit the Spirit Realm and touch the Great Deep?'
'Perhaps. Nobody really understands, and every school of magic has different theories. Some think the rite is merely a shared hallucination that helps awaken a mage’s powers.'
'What do you think, Milady?'
'It is as I told you when we were in the other place. I think it is both a dream and a reality, where mind touches the Deep.'
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He did feel different now. For all his weakness, he felt as if he could access a secret source of strength and draw power from it. He said so.
'You can, Rik. You forged a direct connection between the Deep and your spirit. You are bound to it now. You can draw magical energy through it once you know the correct techniques.'
'Techniques?'
'Techniques, spells, whatever you want to call them. Incantations and rituals are merely ways of preparing the mind and the soul, of focusing attention and will.'
'You will teach me these?'
'I have already started to. Many of the basic exercises we practised will enable you to draw on the power now. Those spells you thought would never work. But there are dangers. Before you do such things you should cleanse your mind by meditating upon the Elder Signs. That is the most basic and essential tool of all.'
