Mercedes Lackey: Lamma's Night (anthology)

I studied also those notes he had made on the nature of the "haunted forest." It seemed to him that there was a heart to the evil, a spawning ground, where the normal was taken in and perverted to evil. He referred often to the "heart of darkness," and reading between the lines, I surmised that he intended to confront this "heart," and attempt to defeat it. A worthy intention—if he could remain untouched by it. If —that was the operable word. Something so powerful might well corrupt all it touched, a mage included.

By night I dreamed those erotic dreams, in which I was possessed by my lover and possessed him in turn. Each night they were clearer; each night the murmuring of my lover came closer to understandable words. Each morning I woke a little later. And yet—and yet, I recovered quickly, nor was the heart of my magic touched in any way.

And each morning, there was another fresh blossom by my plate—now, invariably, a red rose, symbolic of desire.

It seemed to me that the autumnal light did strange things within this little house, for as I moved about it I was followed by a shadow, not quite a double of my own. And never could I see it when I looked straightly at it—only from the corner of my eye. It danced attendance on me from the moment I crossed the threshold to the moment I left.

I really don't know why it took me so long to realize the danger I was in. Perhaps—if I had been a man, this never could have happened. I was so lonely, and had denied my loneliness so long that I was, I suppose, doubly vulnerable. Nor, had I been less of a mage, could I have been so ensorceled, for a lesser mage would not have been able to merge with Keighvin's magic as I had been able to do.

For whatever reason there was, for whatever weakness lay in me, I had woken something in that place with my presence.

I ventured at last a second time into that haunted wood—this time by daylight, for I meant to cross the boundary.

I found the "heart of darkness" indeed, just as Keighvin had written of it.

It was a grove in the center of the haunted circle, a grove in which the noon sun did not even penetrate the unleaving branches of the trees. I did not venture into it, for there was a deadly cold about that place, and I took warning by it. I sensed something buried beneath the font of an ancient willow; something older than my art, something that hated with a passion like knives of ice. Something so utterly evil that my very soul was shaken to the roots.

Not death—that was not what it longed for—corruption, perversion of all that lived and grew was the goal it sought. It was bound—but only half-bound. The magics that held it were incomplete. And they were Keighvin's; I could sense this beyond doubting.

He had come here, then, but had left his work unfinished. Why? What had disturbed him? Had he fallen ill, or worse than ill? The orderly man I intuited from his work and writings would not so have left something incomplete, unless—

Unless he had no choice.

And I dared not try to complete it, not without knowing exactly what he had done, else I would loose what he had sought to bind.

But to leave it half-bound—that was dangerous, too. If this thing should break the half-bonds, and absorb them into itself, it would be powerful enough to pass the boundary of the circle so many had cast.

I left that place more awake than I had been since I came to my village, and returned, sobered and not a little frightened, to the home I had come to call my own. I sat, my thoughts chasing themselves around in circles, until the last light died and I lit a candle, placing it on the table in the sitting room. As I did so, I danced at the night-darkened glass of the window, looking not at the landscape beyond, but at the reflection.

And it was only then, only when I saw the shadow standing behind me in that reflection and recognized him for my dream lover, that I truly woke to what bad been happening to me in my own home.

How, why, I did not know, but I knew this—the shadow that courted me, the lover of my dreams, and the wizard Keighvin were one and the same. He was still earthbound—tied to me, feeding on me. A benign, harmless relationship—now. But unless I acted, and acted quickly, I could easily find myself being drained by the ghostly lovemaking. With every dream-tryst, he was growing stronger, and had been for some time. For the moment the relationship was harmless—but there was no guarantee that it would remain so. I stood in mortal danger of becoming exhausted, until I became another such wraith. Lake Keighvin, unliving, yet undying.

I dropped the candlestick I was holding, and the chimney shattered at my feet.

Heedless of the shards of glass I trod upon, I ran for the stairs and the library. I knew I must act, and act quickly, while I still had the resolution to do so.

I remembered one book, a huge, hand-lettered tome, that held the spell I needed. I pulled it down from its place on the shelf, coughing a little from the dust that I disturbed, and set it on the table, flipping hurriedly through the pages to find the one spell I needed.

I found it three-quarters of the way through the book; not a spell of exorcism, but a different sort of spell. A spell to open the door between this world and the next so that an earthbound spirit would be drawn through it and into its proper sphere. It was a most dangerous spell, risking both body and soul of the caster. The danger to the body lay in that the caster must leave it to open the door, and that it would cause a deadly draining of physical energy. The danger to the soul lay in that the spell left it vulnerable and unshielded, and the temptation of that doorway would be very great.

Yet—I could not drive my gentle lover away by brutal exorcism; no, I could not be so cruel to him who had only been (thus far) kind. This was the only spell I could choose—

And then, in the draftless room, an unseen hand turned the page of the great book.

I thought it was the same spell at first. Then I saw that it differed by one single word, a few strokes of a pen. That first spell I knew, but this—this was another totally unknown. And its purpose was—

Was to let the mage-born, if they had died before their appointed time, take flesh and live again.

Both spells were equal in danger to body and soul. The second, in point of fact, placed a tolerable amount of danger on the spirit involved, for if he was judged and found wanting, it meant utter dissolution. Nowhere was it written that either spell was of Dark path, or Light; they were utterly neutral.

Both required they be cast this night of all nights; Hallowmas, the perilous, when Light magic and Dark are in equal balance, and either result is likely from any spell made—and most particularly when, as now, Hallowmas falls under a waning moon.

This is risking the anger of the gods, to take upon oneself the restoring of the dead—yet what and who am I to judge who is fit to live or die?

Since that day, one week ago, he has not come to me by night; does he judge that I would repudiate him {do I have the strength?) or is he letting me make my decision unsullied by his attentions?

What of the "heart of darkness?" Did he try to bind it, and become corrupted by it? Why did he leave the task half done? Did it murder him, to keep him from destroying it? Is this why he begs life anew? Duty? To see the task through to its end?

Or—does he love me, as he seemed to? Is it me that calls to him? Never have I melded so with another's magics as I did with his—never has my soul or body responded so to another's touch.

Or does he seek to use me, corrupted by that foul thing that lay beneath the willow's roots? Will he use me, and then destroy me and set that evil free?

Could I trust his answer if I were to attempt to ask him why?