The Wallcreeper moved away from the lectern and stopped over a scroll of pristine parchment lying unfurled on the marble table. Having pushed up the sleeves of his black robe, he raised his arms. In his right hand, he held a wand made from a yew branch.

“Veritas lux via,” he began calmly, stooped humbly over the parchment, “et vita omnium creaturarum, vivifica me. Yecologos, Matharihon, Secromagnol, Secromehal. Veritas lux via, vivifica me.”

You’d have sworn a wind blew through the crypt. The candle flames flickered and the fire on the tripod suddenly exploded. The shadows on the walls and the vaulted ceiling assumed fantastic shapes. The Wallcreeper straightened up and spread his arms in a sudden movement. “Conjuro et confirmo super vos, Belethol et Corphandonos, et vos Heortahonos et Hacaphagon, in nomine Adonay, Adonay, Adonay, Eie, Eie, Eie, Ya, Ya, qui apparuis monte Sinai, cum glorificatione regis Adonay, Saday, Zebaoth, Anathay, Ya, Ya, Ya, Marinata, Abim, Jeia, per nomen stellae, quae est Mars, et per quae est Saturnus, et per quae est Luciferus, et per nomina omnia praedicta, super vos conjuro, Rubiphaton, Simulaton, Usor, Dilapidator, Dentor, Divorator, Seductor, Seminator, ut pro me labores! ”

Fire shot up in bursts, shadows danced. On the parchment—virginally pure until that moment—suddenly began to appear hieroglyphics, symbols, sigla and signs, at first pale, but quickly becoming darker.

“Helos, Resiphaga, lozihon,” recited the Wallcreeper, following with movements of his wand the figures as they appeared. “Ythetendyn, Thahonos, Micemya. Nelos, Behebos, Belhores. Et diabulus stet a dextris.”

The Hospitaller shuddered. He recognised the gestures and formulae, enough to guess that Master Grellenort was casting a terrible spell on somebody, a spell capable from a distance of attacking the selected individual with weakness, illness, paralysis—death, even. But there wasn’t enough time for dread, or to analyse whom the master had selected as his victim. The Wallcreeper held out his hand in an impatient gesture. The acolyte quickly pulled a white dove from a wooden cage and handed it to him.

The Wallcreeper calmed the fluttering bird with a gentle touch. And wrenched off its head with a sudden movement. Gripping it in his fist, he squeezed it like a lemon, straight onto the occultum, the spurting blood describing complicated patterns on the parchment.

“Alon, Pion, Dhon, Mibizimi! Et diabulus stet a dextris! ”

The Wallcreeper tore the next dove into pieces, holding it by a wing and a leg. And ripped the heads off the next three with his teeth.

“Shaddai El Chai! Et diabulus stet a dextris! ”

It takes time, thought the acolyte, for that spell to reach the place it’s been sent to. But when it does, the person who is the target will be doomed.

Feathers and down whirled around the crypt, burned up in the fire, floating up to the ceiling on warm air. The Wallcreeper spat the feathers from his blood-covered lips and placed the wand on the parchment, wet with blood.