The Witch Queen by Jan Siegel Read Free Book Online Page B

by her master. And among them the fluid gleam of water sprites and the small shadowy beings who had lived for centuries under brick or stone, now no longer able to remember what they were or who they had once been. Even the imp from the oven was there, trailing in the rear, clutching in vain at the door frame until he was wrenched into the vortex of the spell.
    When the stream of phantoms had finally passed, Dibbuck plucked out the splinter and limped forward, still blocking his ears, until he could just see into the room. The pain in his foot went unregarded as he watched what followed, too petrified even to shiver. Within the circle, the ghosts were drawn into a whirling, shuddering tornado, a pillar that climbed from floor to ceiling, bending this way and that as the spirits within struggled to escape. Distorted features spun around the outside—writhing lips, stretching eyes. The witch stood on the periphery with her arms outspread, as if she held the very substance of the air in her hands. The spell soared to a crescendo; the tornado spun into a blur. Then the chant stopped on a single word, imperative as fate:
“Uvalé!”
And again:
“Uvalé néan-charne!”
Blue lightning ripped upward, searing through the pillar. There was a crack that shook the room, and inside the circle the floor opened.
    The swirl of ghosts was sucked down as if by an enormous vacuum, vanishing into the hole with horrifying speed. The goblin caught one final glimpse of Sir William, losing hold of his head for the first time since his death, his mouth a gape of absolute terror. Then he was gone. What lay below Dibbuck could not see, save that it was altogether dark. The last phantom drained away; the circle was empty. At a word from the witch, the crack closed. On the far side of the room he registered the presence of Nehemet, sitting bolt upright like an Egyptian statue; the light of the spellfire shone balefully in her slanted eyes. Slowly, one step at a time, he inched backward. Then he began to run.
    “We missed one,” said the woman. “One spying, prying little rat. I do not tolerate spies. Find him.”
    The cat sprang.
    But Dibbuck had grown adept at running and dodging of late, and he was fast. The injury to his foot was insubstantial as his flesh; it hurt but hardly hindered him. He fled with a curious hobbling gait down the twisting stairs and along the maze of corridors, through doors both open and shut, over shadow and under shadow. Nehemet might have been swifter, but her solidity hampered her, and at the main door she had to stop, mewing savagely and scratching at the panels. Outside, Dibbuck was still running. He did not hesitate or look back. Through the Wrokewood he ran and up Farsee Hill, and in the shelter of three trees he halted to rest, hoping that in this place his wild cousins of long ago might have some power to keep him from pursuit.

    The conservatory was completed; the gypsy and his coworkers had been paid and dismissed. “You have not found him,” Morgus said to the sphinx cat. “Well. It is not important. He was only a goblin, a creature of cobwebs and corners, less trouble than a dormouse. We have greater matters at hand.” It was now four days since the exorcism, and the house grew very still when she passed: the curtains did not breathe, the stairs did not creak. Somewhere deep in its ancient mortar, in the marrow of its walls, the house felt lonely for its agelong occupants, lonely and uncomprehending. It sensed the invasion of alien lights, the laying down of new shadows, the incursion of elementals lured by the force of dark magic. It missed the familiar ghosts, as a stray dog given a well-meaning bath misses its native fleas. Inside, the atmosphere changed, becoming bleak and watchful, though no one was watching anymore.
    The prisoner in the attic felt it, if only because there was nothing else to feel. Morgus rarely visited him anymore, even to gloat, so he would talk to himself, and the house, and a