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finished.
"They're going to cure her!" Thetta protested.
"If they can," Mavi said. "I don't know whether you can cure warlocks."
"Why don't we go see?" Oria asked, getting to her feet. "Just let me put a few things away..."
The others quickly agreed, and half an hour later the three of them were in Aniara's parlor, talking to Aniara
and her mother, pretending not to listen to the chanting faintly audible from upstairs.
"I hope it works," Aniara said, looking up the stairs.
"It's not really so horrible, being a warlock," Mavi said. "Some of the people at Lord Faran's house seemed
almost proud of it. And it must be handy sometimes, being able to do magic like that."
Aniara shuddered. "It's creepy" she said. "What if she goes mad, like those others, and starts breaking
things? Or what if people start disappearing around her? What if ..."
Just then the daylight seemed almost to flicker, and Mavi and the others felt a sudden pressure.
Mavi swallowed. "I think the theurgist's invocation worked,"
she said. The notion that there was an actual god-or at least a partial manifestation of one-in Pancha's room
upstairs made her at least as nervous as the houseful of warlocks had.
"I wonder which god he was summoning?" Oria asked, glancing at the stairs.
"I remember that when Diriel was sick, the priestess summoned Blukros," Thetta said. "She said Blukros
was god of healing."
"I'm not sure warlockry is something that needs healing," Mavi said doubtfully. She glanced at Aniara's
mother-Pancha's mother, as well-who was sitting in the rocking chair in the corner, rocking steadily in
unhappy silence.
The five women did not speak for a moment after that; the knowledge of a god's presence was affecting them
all, in various ways. At last Aniara said, "Mavi, tell me more about what Lord Faran said!"
Welcoming the distraction, Mavi began a detailed account of Lord Faran's actions the previous day. She had
gotten to his sorcerous conversation with the wizard Ithinia when the air suddenly stirred, and an invisible
pressure seemed to be lifted from the room.
All eyes turned to the stairs.
"It must be over," Oria said.
A moment later they all heard the sound of a door opening and of Pancha snuffling; then the theurgist came
slowly down the stairs, straightening his white robe.
"What happened?" Aniara asked, leaping to her feet.
The theurgist took a deep breath, then said, "I consulted the goddess Unniel the Discerning, and I'm afraid
the results are not what you hoped for."
"What do you mean?"
The theurgist sighed. "I mean the goddess could not even recognize your sister as human." Before anyone
could respond, he raised a hand and continued. "This isn't as significant as it sounds-the gods see things
differently than we do, and often don't perceive magicians other than theurgists as human. There are some
people they can't see at all; we don't know why, and they have never managed to explain it in ways we can
understand. Unniel could see Pancha, but not as a human being; she said Pancha was a thing she had no
Ethsharitic word for."
Aniara made a strangled noise.
"Unniel could not tell me anything useful about this magic," the theurgist said. "She could not remove it, and
assured me no other god or demon could. She said it was unlikely that any other magic could reverse
Pancha's transformation, due to something she called an ursettor fwal in Pancha's brain, but reminded me
that even the gods don't understand wizardry or know exactly what it can and cannot do."
"So she's still a warlock?" Aniara's mother demanded. Mavi turned, startled, to see that the older woman had
stopped rocking and was staring intently at the priest.
"Yes, she's still a warlock," the theurgist replied. "There's nothing more I can do about it."
"I don't want a warlock in my house," the old woman said.
"Mother, she's your own daughter!" Aniara said.
"Not anymore," her mother said. "You heard the priest-she's not even human anymore! She's a thing that
used to be my daughter."
"I didn't say ..." the theurgist began.
"Human or not, she might go berserk at any time," the old woman said. "Did any of you hear about the house [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]