Chapter 4
Deliverance
Village huts and cottages seldom had more than one window, but the library had large, semi-translucent glass windows on each wall to provide light during daytime hours. Inside, the room had a table and two chairs. On the table a large candle, about the diameter of a man’s arm, was stuck by hardened wax to a plate that served as its base. The availability of illumination day or night and the absence of a lock on the door provided any potential readers with unrestricted opportunity to consult the village books.
Even though relatively few residents actually could read, all took pride in their compilation of books and other written works. Their collection of more than thirty items was thought to be larger than any place outside of the King’s castle. Huxley’s books came from various sources, but most were turned over by villagers upon inheritance. It was a long held tradition for anyone with a book among his or her possessions to donate it for community access. Books were too highly valued for individuals to keep to themselves.
Along two adjoining walls in this building were numerous shelves holding the few dozen books and other written items. Anson went immediately to the old palimpsest located on the highest shelf and carefully brought it down. Of the few persons who may have attempted to read this old manuscript, all but a mage would recognize it as a compendium of many things from recipes to records of rainfall put down over many years. Only a mage would detect those scattered entries obscured in the overwritten parchment pages that would compose spells if properly sequenced. It was unknown why these spells were safeguarded in this manner.
Anson sat down and set the pages on the table in the proper order. Ignoring aches and pains from the night’s travail, he sped through the lines to formulate a deliverance. In his desperation, he resisted the nagging truth that he knew nothing about this spell, or any person who had learned it. He had no idea where, or to what, he might be “delivered.” The outcome could be worse than the situation precipitating the spell. It was even possible that the incantation could cause death, catatonia or some other unknown but dubious form of deliverance. Would the spellcaster remain clothed? Would physical articles on his person be lost?
Settling his anxiety as best he could, Anson focused his mind precisely as trained through thousands of repetitions of common spellcasting. The words of a spell and hand movements were actually less important than the spellcaster’s state of mind. Any person could recite the words, but nothing intentional would happen without the controlled focus of a trained spellcaster. With his concentration building, Anson was ready to proceed. He canted the spell’s words and phrases in a low voice, reciting them exactly as written. Speaking slowly at first, he increased the tempo as he completed the first iteration. With a second recital, his voice rose in volume as he blended the words and phrases with gestures into a pattern. To an untrained ear, this incantation might sound like simple mumbling, but a competent mage would carefully enunciate the words to flow together, conceiving a coalescent, evocative thought with the hand gestures as catalyst to give the pattern a powerful rhythm. However, long complex spells like this one might require multiple iterations to get the intended outcome. With Anson’s experience and talent, he rarely needed to cant a spell more than once. Not this time. Through a second iteration, he felt the spell begin to take hold, its affects becoming perceptible. Whiteness billowed in his mind like hoar-fog, blurring the sights and sounds around him. He closed his eyes as his vision started fading. The power and depth of this spell was already unlike anything he ever experienced. With a pounding heart and rising excitement, he braced himself. It was going to work. It was working!
At the onset of a third iteration, there were voices outside the room. Almost casually, a Gilsum Guardsman peered in the doorway and watched dumbly trying to comprehend what was happening to the young man seated at a table. He was startled upon seeing Anson’s image fade, as if it was beginning to disappear. The Guardsman drew his dagger and shouted, “Stop this deviltry and be taken prisoner!”
A thick shadow cloaked Anson. He felt so extraordinarily light and unfixed in time or place that he dismissed any thought to the armed threat. He faded completely from view as the Guardsman cocked his arm and threw the dagger. In the scant second it took to fly across the room, the blade passed harmlessly through Anson’s spectral shadow and stuck an inch deep in the chair, where it landed at throat height and quivered as it was denied its fleshy target.