Divided against Yourselves (Spell Weaver) by Bill Hiatt Read Free Book Online Page A

pointedly ignoring Nurse Florence.
    “Raise the power!” I said to Morgan, also ignoring Nurse Florence, whose face betrayed more shock than I had ever seen before. I felt more than a twinge of guilt. After all, Nurse Florence had saved my life more than once. Even more compelling, she had risked her life to save mine. Still, Carla’s coma was my fault. If I could find a way to cure it, I was going to take that way.
    Again Morgan raised her left hand and engulfed it in the unhealthy red glow. Nurse Florence and I reached our minds out, poking gently at the force. Instinctively, my mind recoiled from it at the first touch. Glancing quickly around, I saw that Stan had reflexively backed away, and even Carla seemed to twitch in her bed, though I might have just imagined a reaction on her part. Still, the power Morgan wielded definitely felt the same as Ceridwen’s awakening spell.
    Fighting my instinctive aversion to that magic, I sent my mind back into its heart, seeking to understand its nature, visualize its workings. When at last I had satisfied myself that this spell did not just feel the same, but was the same, I pulled back out again, and, conscious of how rude I had been to Nurse Florence, I waited for her confirmation of what I already knew. Not having been the victim of the spell, she needed to study it longer, but after a few more minutes, even she had to agree.
    “It is the same power,” she admitted. “But that only proves that Morgan knows how to cast the spell, not that she knows how to undo it.”
    “Really?” replied Morgan angrily. “Do you really think I would be foolish enough to accept only part of the information about the spell as payment?”
    “Based on what Ceridwen said at the time, her agenda only required being able to cast the spell. She had no need to undo it. Perhaps she never created a way to undo it.”
    Nurse Florence and Morgan glared at each other. Well, I could hardly expect them to be friends, and I kept telling myself Nurse Florence was right to be cautious, even though my heart cried out to stop talking and start curing Carla.
    “My ‘agenda’ is more diverse than hers,” replied Morgan finally, again addressing me exclusively. “I pressed her for a way to reverse the spell, and she taught me one.”
    “Then why not just use it?” I asked. “What made you think you need me?”
    Morgan sighed. “I said there was a way to reverse the spell. I didn’t say that it was easy or that I could do it alone. You may recall the spell seems to take very little effort to cast, a rather unusual characteristic for a spell of such power. But power must always be paid for somehow. Ceridwen paid for it by making the process needed to reverse it insanely difficult. Observe!”
    The reddish glow on Morgan’s hand turned green, and, before I could move a muscle, the greenness whipped out, grabbed onto something within Carla, and pulled. The guys drew their weapons, and Nurse Florence raised her hands as if to use magic.
    “I’m not hurting her!” Morgan snapped. “I said observe! What do your senses tell you?”
    I don’t know how much the guys could see, but I could see clearly that the green whip had latched onto a tendril of redness from within Carla and was pulling on it steadily, but with absolutely no effect. Again I sent forth my mind into the force Morgan was using. I tasted its nature, and I knew immediately that it was the opposite of the power in the awakening spell. I studied its workings even more diligently than I had probed the workings of the first spell.
    After a few minutes Morgan extinguished the green glow. She looked visibly more drained than she had just a few minutes before that. “As you can see,” she said tiredly, “there is a way to pull the second dose of that spell out of her and restore her to consciousness, but I cannot do it by myself.”
    “How about removing both castings and returning her to normal?” asked Stan. I was surprised at first, but