Death of an Adept

Chapter Sixteen

THAT same night, while Adam Sinclair and his friends prepared to usher in the new year with time-honored pledges of good fellowship, Francis Raeburn and a small number of handpicked associates were converging on one of Scotland's less well known National Trust properties, now closed for the winter - the bleak and desolate border fortress of Hermitage Castle.

The ruined castle was an apt location for what Raeburn had in mind. Sited just north of the Cheviot Hills that marked the age-old boundary between Scotland and England, Hermitage squatted ponderous and forbidding, even on the brightest of days. A shallow streamlet called Hermitage Water bordered it to the south, joined half a mile to the southeast by a lesser tributary called Whitrope Burn.

A narrow B-road ran parallel to the burn and then beside the confluence of the two streams, meandering from Hawick, twelve miles to the north, then southwestward through a sparse string of border villages to Gretna Green and Carlisle. Even in summer, Hermitage was well off the beaten tourist track; and in the dead of winter, as the year turned, it was populated only by rooks and shadows. Popular legend asserted that the sorcerous depravities of one of its former masters, William Lord Soulis, had caused the castle to sink into the ground for very shame.

Raeburn's associates had made careful preparations for the night's work. As his white Land Rover eased into the lesser road that skirted Hermitage Water, Barclay at the wheel, a figure in white snow-camouflage fatigues materialized out of the shadows beside the road and flagged them down. Barclay simultaneously eased the vehicle to a halt and reached for the Luger under the dashboard, but the figure stripped off its mottled grey ski mask to reveal the pale, ascetic features of Klaus Richter.

Barclay relaxed. Raeburn rolled down the window on the passenger side of the car and waited for Richter to join them.

"Everything is ready, Lynxmeister," the German reported crisply. "We may proceed as planned."

"Good," said Raeburn. "Get in."

Richter made for the rear passenger seat. Angela Fitzgerald moved over to make room for him as Barclay set the Land Rover in motion again.

"Any problems?" Raeburn queried over his shoulder.

"None," Richter replied. "My men are stationed as you directed. Nothing has been left to chance."

"Let's hope not," Raeburn murmured. "I cannot overstress the delicate nature of this night's work. Every detail must be correctly executed, or the operation could well prove our undoing."

As he spoke, his long fingers tightened possessively around the polished ash-wood casket he was carrying on his knees. Though the Soulis dagger was locked inside the casket, its resonances damped down by spells of containment, Raeburn could sense the added potency it had gained merely from being used in the bull-slaying ritual of a fortnight before.

His lean face bore a wolfish expression as he peered out to the right, searching the dark landscape just beyond Hermitage Water. He caught his breath as the castle suddenly materialized, its massive bulk heavy and almost menacing against the starless blackness of the sky.

"Slow down," Richter ordered Barclay. "The turnoff to the bridge is just beyond that house on the left."

Raeburn eyed the house suspiciously as Barclay slowed to a crawl, for lights showed behind closed curtains in two of the windows on the upper floor.

"The house is unoccupied tonight," Richter said, following Raeburn's sharp gaze. "Its residents have gone up to Hawick for a party. The lights have been left on as a precaution against burglars - as if that would stop me, if I wished to gain access. Look right! There's the bridge."

A flat wood-and-metal bridge spanned Hermitage Water just where the shoulder of the road widened slightly to permit tourist parking. Two of Richter's operatives were on hand to open the gates that secured both ends of the bridge, and Barclay dimmed the Land Rover's headlamps before easing the big vehicle almost noiselessly across the bridge, following Richter's directions around to the right, then into the shelter of the castle's blind side.

A second Land Rover equipped with a rooftop compartment was already in place, along with the sleek bulk of two powerful motorcycles parked close to the castle wall. Dim light streamed from the inside of the second Land Rover, barely illuminating a standing figure in a homburg and a voluminous scarf, just outside an open rear door. Seated in the car was a figure muffled under a dark blanket. Two more of Richter's henchmen were standing by in the background near the motorcycles, indistinguishable from one another in their snow-camouflage gear, and almost invisible.

The hatted figure turned as Barclay pulled in next to the other Land Rover and killed the engine, Mallory's handsome, dissipated features just discernible in the dim light. Raeburn alighted from the passenger side and approached, his casket under one arm, summoning the young physician with a curt gesture.

"How's our patient?" he inquired in a low voice.

Mallory glanced back at the figure slumped under the blanket, now just recognizable as Taliere.

"He's had his medicine. He won't give you any trouble."

"You'd better hope he doesn't," Angela muttered, as Barclay handed her out of the rear passenger seat. "We're only going to get one shot at this, so everything had better go as planned."

"If it doesn't, it won't be my fault!" Mallory retorted.

"Quiet, you two!" Raeburn snapped.

Gathering valises of personal gear from the back of the Land Rover, Raeburn and his associates made their way around the base of the walls to the postern entrance on the east side. The entryway gave access to the castle courtyard, its broken cobbles overshadowed by frowning walls of dull red stone. A makeshift canvas roof had been contrived to contain the murky light of a handful of hi-tech mini-spots set at strategic locations all around, their filtered glow washing the enclosure with a smoky amber that mimicked torchlight.

At the center of the courtyard, surrounding a large brazen cauldron, staves of rowan wood had been woven together to create a ritual facsimile of an execution pyre. Other necessities for the night's work had been assembled on the ground nearby, including a coiled length of heavy iron chain, a large jerrycan of oil, a roll of lead sheeting the height of a man, and several large suitcases.

Raeburn took stock of the assembled accoutrements, Angela ticking off items from a written list, then curtly nodded his approval. In the course of his brief inventory, Mallory and one of Richter's men brought in a glassy-eyed and stumbling Tal-iere, his blanket now trailing from his shoulders like a cloak over the flowing white Druid robes he had worn at Callanish. Raeburn fell silent as the old man was chivvied over to the cauldron and allowed to sink to his knees, turning then to the waiting Richter.

"Everything seems to be in order," he murmured. "You and your men can take your stations outside. Keep a close watch. I'll send for you when we're finished."

Richter and his men withdrew. The courtyard was as dank and frigid as the bottom of a frozen well, but Raeburn seemed hardly aware of the cold as he shed his outer garments to pull on a full-length hooded robe of black wool which Barclay produced from one of the suitcases. His trio of assistants likewise effected a change of attire, their robes embroidered on the left shoulder, like Raeburn's, with the silver-limned emblem of a snarling lynx head. In addition, betokening his status as senior of the group, Raeburn donned a disk-shaped medallion of beaten silver upon which the device of the lynx head had been executed in bold relief.

Once robed, Barclay and Angela made their way over to Taliere and pulled him unceremoniously to his feet. His wits dulled by narcotics, the old Druid offered no resistance as Angela whipped the blanket from his shoulders and replaced it with the feathered mantle he had worn at Callanish. Her features took on a vulpine sharpness as she lifted the bird-feather headdress from its carrying case and set it firmly on Taliere's salt-white head.

"Ecce homo,'' she sneered aside to Barclay, as they sat the Druid on a nearby block of stone. "The perfect offering for this momentous occasion."

Raeburn and Mallory, meanwhile, had retreated to the recess of a closed doorway, where Mallory was laying out items from his medical bag, by the light of an electric torch. Crouching down to sit on the doorsill beside Mallory, his back braced against the door frame, Raeburn cradled the casket in his lap, then bared his left arm and offered it to the physician. He paid little attention as Mallory applied a tourniquet above his elbow, mechanically clenching and unclenching his fist to pump up the vein as he mentally rehearsed the sequence of events to come.

A sharp whiff of alcohol quickly recalled him, punctuated by the cold caress of the sterile wipe Mallory scrubbed over the inside of his bare arm - and then the bite of the needle. A faint smile lifted one corner of Raeburn's mouth as he watched his own blood begin to creep down the flexible length of clear plastic tubing attached to the needle, halted by a metal clamp midway along the tube until Mallory could apply a strip of tape to stabilize the needle. That done, Mallory set a small leaden bowl in his chief's free hand, retrieved the free end of the tube and directed it into the bowl - threaded under Raeburn's thumb to secure it - then loosed the tourniquet and thumbed the metal clamp.

Immediately Raeburn's blood began to race along the tube, pooling in the bowl, steaming in the cold. Raeburn watched for a moment, stony-faced, then closed his eyes and leaned his head against the doorjamb, content to let Mallory monitor the procedure.

While he bled, Angela Fitzgerald made her way to the castle's well in the northeast tower, taking with her a metal flask attached to a long cord. The protective grid of iron bars overlaying the well-top was coarse enough to let her lower the flask to draw up a measure of dark, evil-smelling water, which she held at arm's length as she took it back to the courtyard.

Mallory was taping a wad of sterile cotton to Raeburn's arm as she returned; the leaden bowl in Raeburn's other hand was three-quarters filled with his blood. Raeburn lurched to his feet when Mallory had taken the bowl from him, steadying himself against the doorjamb while Mallory stowed the debris from the blood-letting operation in his black bag. When the physician rose, he had the bowl of blood in one hand and a brush made from swine's bristles in the other.

"You're on," he murmured, glancing over Raeburn with a physician's eye. "Any lightheadedness?"

Shaking his head, Raeburn motioned for Mallory to follow him into the center of the courtyard, where he set the casket on the ground beside the cauldron. Taking the bowl and brush from Mallory, he then proceeded to paint a large equilateral triangle on the stone flagging around the cauldron, big enough to also contain a recumbent man. While he worked, Mallory retrieved his medical bag and returned to where Taliere sat, head slumped forward on his chest and with Barclay and Angela supporting him.

Raeburn finished the triangle and went to the north of the cauldron, where he began inscribing a large circle to contain their working area. Angela moved to stand just inside the western quarter of the circle he traced, watching as Mallory crouched at Taliere's feet and filled an earthen cup from a flask in his medical bag. The physician gestured to Barclay as he rose, setting his free hand on the old Druid's shoulder.

"Tilt his head back, so I can give him this," he said.

Barclay complied, watching as Mallory tipped the contents of the cup down the old man's throat.

"Is that what he made me drink, after we did the bull?" he asked in a low voice.

"Aye, from his own supply. It's a draught of mistletoe."

Meanwhile, using all the blood that remained in the bowl, Raeburn completed his circle, set the empty bowl and brush outside, then took took the Pictish dagger from its casket. The corroded blade had been honed to razor-sharpness along one edge, so that the silvery line shimmered in the murky light as he moved back to the northern quadrant of the boundary circle and raised the blade skyward in salute. A muttered invocation stirred power in the circle, focused through the blade as he touched its tip to the line of blood with a sibilant Word of command.

Eldritch energies seared upward where metal kissed blood, like a tinder brand bursting into flames. Raeburn recoiled from its brilliance, one hand upheld to shield his eyes as, hissing, the charge raced widdershins around the circle like a spark devouring a fuse, leaving behind a ghostly afterimage of flick- ering motes. When the sparks faded out, the wall of force remained in place, impenetrable as a curtain of lead.

Raeburn allowed himself a tiny sigh of relief, his pale eyes gone dark like adamant. Shifting the dagger to his left hand, he moved back beside the cauldron and lifted both arms above his head in an attitude of summoning.

"Glorious is the Night, womb of eternal Darkness!" he cried. "Glorious are the Ancient Ones who refuse to be hallowed by the Light! Glorious are the Rebellious Ones who scorn the sovereignty of Heaven! Glorious are the Mighty Ones who delight in the counsels of Shadow! Shield us, we pray, from the sight of those who profess Enlightenment! Glorify Yourselves, we beseech You, in concealing the work of our hands!"

With these words he reverted to one of the arcane tongues of command to which his occult studies had long ago given him access, swaying on his feet with closed eyes as Barclay moved forward to break open the jerrycan of oil and empty it into the cauldron: With Mallory assisting, he next wrapped the length of iron chain around the roll of lead sheeting and locked it in place with a heavy, old-fashioned padlock. Then the two of them lifted the roll into the cauldron, bracing it up on one end in grotesque parody of a gallows victim.

Angela Fitzgerald, meanwhile, was standing by with the flask of well-water, watching Raeburn for her cue. His chanting had not changed while his two male associates made their preparations; but as he suddenly directed the point of the dagger in Angela's direction, eyes still closed, she gave a slight involuntary gasp, her lips parting in an instant of near-sexual arousal. Only belatedly did she move forward, as if in trance, to empty the vessel of water into the cauldron. The oil broke and swirled, the water sinking out of sight as she dropped the empty flask amid the kindling of rowan wood and raised her hands in invocation.

"By the power of this water, drawn from this unhallowed ground, I summon to this time and place William de Soulis, Lord of Hermitage! As he is named, so let him appear!"

Her voice reverberated hollowly around the courtyard. As the echoes died away and she stepped back, eyes still lit with the power stirring in the circle, Barclay moved to the fore. From a pouch at his side the pilot took out a handful of earth which had been gathered earlier that day from the hill at Nine Stane Rig, the place of Soulis's execution, and cast it into the cauldron's mouth.

"By the power of the earth that received his ashes," he declared, "I summon to this time and place William de Soulis, Lord of Hermitage. As he is named, so let him appear!"

The earth sank sluggishly beneath the glistening slick of oil floating upon the water. Barclay yielded precedence in turn to Mallory, who was standing by with a lighted black taper.

Deadly focused, the young physician circled the cauldron once widdershins, touching flame to the kindling laid about the base, then set alight the oil lying on the surface of the cauldron's contents. It had been laced with something more combustible than mere oil, and a harsh yellow flame licked upward around the roll of chain-bound lead as Mallory drew back a pace to raise both hands in invocation.

"By the power of fire which devoured his flesh and left his spirit anchorless," he cried, "I summon to this time and place William de Soulis, Lord of Hermitage. As he is named, so let him appear!"

Raeburn came last, with a handful of sulphur and saltpetre which he cast into the flaming cauldron. As yellow fumes roiled upward, he breathed deeply of their fetid perfume before raising hand and dagger in further exhortation.

"By all infernal powers of the air and all the many works of Darkness, I summon to this time and place William de Soulis, Lord of Hermitage! As he is named, so let him appear!"

The power being summoned had increased exponentially with each elemental invocation. Prevented from dissipating by the confines of the circle, the power hung crackling in the air like the build-up of a static electrical charge. Raeburn could feel it beating about him like a strong wind, stirring the hackles at the back of his neck as his pulse rate quickened to match its rhythm.

Half-intoxicated, he seized hold of the power with his right hand and began channelling it into the dagger in his left, molding it by the force of his will, pointing the dagger at the cauldron. The dagger-hilt began to quiver in his grasp like a live thing, aglow with arcane energies.

The metal grew hot to the touch, but Raeburn, his face contorted in ecstatic endurance, continued to hold the power in check until it threatened to scorch his palms. Then, abruptly, he released it like a psychic probe, launching it with single-minded intent into the abyss of the Inner Planes, whose physical focus now was the cauldron.

Eternity seemed to hang suspended before his far-ranging senses registered a response. So faint was the signature that at first he found it difficult to distinguish from the background shimmer of so many overlapping realms.

But the locus of movement grew progressively stronger, homing in on its summoners with a speed outside normal time. No physical manifestation heralded its arrival, but Raeburn became abruptly aware of a sentient presence focused on the cauldron, malignant and hungry - Soulis, beyond any doubt, and too hungry to manifest without sustenance.

"Bring him!" Raeburn rasped, jerking his chin toward Tal-iere.

Immediately Mallory yanked the old man to his feet and hustled him forward, forcing him to his knees before the cauldron and then snapping a capsule of ammonia under his nose. The old man recoiled with a jerk of his head, animating the ceremonial bird headdress he wore, but Barclay had already sidled into position behind him, armed with a stream-smoothed stone the size of two fists. The blow he dealt to the back of the old Druid's head sent the bird headdress flying; and as Mallory caught the victim's wrists to keep him from crumpling, Barclay tossed his stone aside and whipped a length of knotted rawhide around Taliere's throat.

This new assault cut off the old man's anguished moan, its force snapping his head back against Barclay's chest, eyes bulging and tongue protruding in a silent rictus of distress as one hand wrenched free of Mallory's grasp to claw ineffectually at the garrote choking out his life.

But even as his struggles began to weaken, Raeburn was moving in with grim determination, somewhat regretting the need to sacrifice Taliere in this manner - but what better to summon and bind a magician than the blood of another magician, and especially one of Taliere's calibre? And only the threefold death would satisfy Taranis, in whose service this night's work was being performed.

The Soulis dagger in one hand, Raeburn seized a handful of the old Druid's long white hair in the other and bade Barclay release the garrote, then wrenched Taliere's head sharply to the right and struck deep at the base of the left ear to sever both the jugular and the carotid artery. Blood gushed from the wound, bespattering Raeburn and Barclay and almost instantly dyeing the front of the white Druid robes with gore.

Any outcry Taliere might have made by this time ended in a liquid gurgle, drowning in his own blood as he was held face-down over the mouth of the cauldron so that his life's blood might bathe the dagger further and mingle with the burning oil and water below. As the stench of burnt blood reinforced the brimstone reek of the sulphur, and the victim's struggles slowly subsided, Raeburn cast his gaze searchingly above the cauldron, still well aware of the entity not yet manifest but drawn by the blood and the sacrifice.

"Yes, come and drink," he whispered, sharpening the focus of his will through the dagger and inviting Soulis to feast - for he had no doubt that the entity summoned by the treble link of dagger, blood, and cauldron, was, indeed, the essence of William Lord Soulis. "Come and feast, dark spirit. But know that if you do, I bind you to these elements of your demise, by debt of blood and power of this blade. I wish you no ill, but I have a proposition for you. If you do not wish to hear it, I can send you back; or if you hear it and refuse, I still can send you back."

Heart pounding, he waited, sensing the angry energy roiling above the cauldron, held back by the potency of the blade in his hand from feasting on Taliere's waning life energy, yet lured by the blood and the promise of blood. Barclay and Mai-lory had stiffened as he addressed the empty air, and glanced at him in alarm as an invisible force seemed to wrench suddenly at the blade.

"You shall not have him save by my leave!" Raeburn said sharply, pulling the dagger from under the waning stream of Taliere's blood, but stabbing it more forcefully at the contents of the cauldron. "If you will have his life's essence, bind yourself to the discipline of this blade. If you do not, I shall send you back whence you came. Long centuries may pass before another gives you even temporary respite from what you have endured these seven hundred years!"

He could sense the angry surge of power over the cauldron, brooding and malevolent, but it could not manifest without his assent. There ensued a brief, fierce struggle of opposing wills as the entity struggled for ascendancy; but centuries of dark confinement had robbed the banished soul of the strength to prolong the contest. Quick to sense weakness, Raeburn brought further force to bear and had the exquisite satisfaction of feeling his opponent capitulate, shrinking into still-disembodied focus in and around the dagger in his hand.

But until compliance came of compulsion, not coercion, Raeburn could not be sure of even a temporary bargain. Slowly, cautiously, he touched his blade to Taliere's bowed head and bade his reluctant visitor to feed, well aware how the other battened greedily on the old man's last life energies and then descended into the cauldron itself to revel in the blood - and allowed itself to be bound.

And once forged, the binding could not be broken save as Raeburn allowed. Grimly triumphant, he signalled his confederates to lay Taliere's now lifeless body on the ground within the triangle that encompassed the cauldron, himself moving outside the triangle. When Barclay and Mallory had withdrawn to stand flanking Angela, far on the other side of the circle, Raeburn pointed the dagger into the cauldron once more, directing the force of his will toward the entity contained therein.

"William de Soulis, know me for your summoner," he declared, utterly focused on his intent. "I called you by name, and you came. I offered you blood, and you fed. By these two articles, you are compelled to recognize my authority. In token of my mastery, I charge you to show yourself, by taking the place that has been prepared for you."

He directed the dagger toward the roll of lead sheeting in the cauldron. There followed another brief flurry of token resistance, but then, abruptly, the roll of chain-wrapped sheeting took on a hectic shimmer, as if it were about to liquefy. In the same moment, the lead bulged outward, defining the spectral outline of a human form wrapped within.

A face took shape at the top of the column, a lean, bearded visage that might have been dissolutely handsome had it not been contorted in an expression of mingled anguish and loathing. The image writhed and wavered, but Soulis himself was demonstrably unable to escape. Satisfied thus far, Raeburn drew himself up and again pointed the dagger at his quarry.

"William de Soulis, I require that you answer certain questions," he declared, never wavering in his intent. "To this end, I have provided you with a host body. I hereby charge you to take possession of it. Attempt to defy me, and I shall send you back to the infernal regions whence you have come."

Using the dagger as a pointer, he indicated Taliere's cooling corpse. The gesture carried the weight of compulsion. Sluggishly, with obvious reluctance, Soulis's presence coalesced briefly in a shimmer of malignant glitter above the cauldron, then brimmed over the edge and downward like an evil mist to engulf and permeate Taliere's body.

A shudder racked the old Druid's abandoned frame. Moving like a damaged marionette, it raised its head and then elbowed itself to its feet in a series of spasmodic jerks. The glazed eyes focused on Raeburn's face in combined hatred and fury. Then the slack mouth moved, emitting a voice that was rough as a file, and utterly unlike Taliere's.

"Who are you, and why have you conjured me?"

The language was an antique variant of Scots, but Raeburn's linguistic abilities were more than adequate to enable him to answer in the same mode.

"I am the Lynx-Master, and your master," he informed Soulis. "Beyond that, my name need not concern you. As for my purpose, I require knowledge that you possess."

"What knowledge might that be?''

"The secret," Raeburn said, "of conjuring and binding elemental spirits."

A malignant sneer contorted the corpse's face.

"What makes you think you are in any way worthy to wield a secret of such magnitude?''

"Have I not brought you here and commanded your obedience?" Raeburn countered. "Surely that bespeaks some hint of the scope of my abilities."

The corpse's lips curled in contemptuous defiance. "All the more reason to keep my knowledge to myself."

"When you hear what I have to offer," Raeburn retorted, "you may be more than willing to bargain. Or does it not interest you to contemplate release from your long banishment?"

"Speak, mortal," the corpse replied in a low, deadly tone.

Raeburn inclined his head. "By dint of my own resources, I have been able to gain access to the operative magical keys by which your adversaries were able to condemn you to banishment amid the Inner Planes. It may interest you to learn that I've devised a way to nullify them. What I therefore propose is a simple exchange of favors: You give me the information that I want - teach me to conjure and bind elemental spirits - and I, in return, will set you free."

After a deathly pause, Soulis spoke slowly, the voice flat and emotionless.

"There is nothing I would not do to regain my liberty," he said, "but it is not within my power to pay your bargaining price."

"Indeed?" Raeburn's one word spoke a world of disbelief. "And why not?"

"For the reason that half the knowledge you demand was never in my keeping," came the response. "It was supplied independently by my spirit familiar."

"By Robin Redcap?"

A look of uneasiness flickered across the face that was no longer Taliere's. "Aye, the same."

"And what, exactly, was Redcap's contribution? Answer me!"

There was another moment's hesitation before Soulis reluctantly replied.

"The required ritual demands the interweaving of two complementary sequences of spells. The first derives from the material realm. The second, however, derives from the realm of Faerie. The language in which these Faerie spells are couched is one which no mortal tongue can pronounce and no mortal mind can retain. Without Redcap's aid, I could not have performed the binding ritual - and neither can you."

"Then I suggest you find me a way to secure the services of Redcap or some other Faerie ally," Raeburn replied, undaunted.

"You have no idea what you are asking," Soulis said flatly. "Redcap was one of the few denizens of Faerie strong enough to empower the incantations."

"Then you will have to persuade him to act as my ally," Raeburn said. "Unless, of course, you have found your former mode of existence so agreeable that you would rather not exert yourself in that regard."

An angry snarl greeted this suggestion. "I do not know if the former link between us yet abides," Soulis rasped.

"Then we shall have to summon him and find out."

"You had better be prepared to satisfy his bloodlust. It is his nature to violate his victims before he eats them."

"Then we shall find him a subject fit for his pleasure," Raeburn retorted. "But understand that I shall expect his full cooperation in return, or you will find yourself once again relegated to the Void, never again to reincarnate."

"I should kill you now," Soulis muttered, "and eat your soul!"

Raeburn drew himself up defiantly, again pointing with the dagger. "I advise you not to make threats you cannot carry out. This is the one and only time I intend to make this offer. Do we have a bargain, or shall I abandon you to your fate?"

A shudder racked Taliere's lifeless corpse from head to foot, but the white head lifted boldly.

"I have told you Redcap's price for this favor; I have not yet named my own."

"Is your freedom not enough?"

"It is not. I shall require physical form, else freedom means little."

"Then I shall provide a second oblation for your own delectation," Raeburn said softly. "Do we have a bargain?"

"We have a bargain," Soulis grated.

Raeburn's lips framed a thin smile. "Excellent. We shall meet again when I have made all the necessary arrangements. I promise you," he added, "that it will not be long."