“Rtsa-brgyud-blama-gsum-gyaaaal!” he bellowed. “Baib-kaa-sngags-ting-adsin-rgyaaai! Show him to me! Find him! Kill him!”

In front of the eyes of the horrified acolyte, who was no stranger to dreadful sights, a reddish glow began to veil the charred skeleton on the catafalque. The glow quickly thickened, took on a form, became more and more material and quickly clothed the skeleton in a bright body. Crimson veins and arteries of fire began to curl and spiral around the charred bones.

“N’ghaa, n’n’ghaighaaai! Iä! Iä! Find him and kill him!”

The skeleton shuddered. And moved. Its bones scraped against the granite of the catafalque. The black skull snapped its charred teeth.

“Shoggog, phthaghn! Iä! Iä! Y-hah, y-nyah! Y-nyah!”

“Scheva! Aradia!” Malevolt sprinkled a handful of powder onto the coals, a mixture of dried sagebrush and pine needles, judging by the smell. He poured blood from the flacon into the flame that shot up.

“Aradia! Regina delle streghe! May it cloud the eyes of he who lies in wait for me. May dread seize him. Fiat, fiat, fiat. Eia!” The beguiler poured three drops of olive oil onto the glowing coals and snapped his fingers. “Scheva! Eia!”

Con tre gocciole d’olio,

With three drops of olive oil,

I curse you, die, burn up, malocchio,

Vanish by the power of Aradia.

Se la Pellegrina adorerai

Tutto tu otterai!

The candle flames suddenly shot upwards.

The candles went out instantly, filling the crypt with the stench of soot. The fire on the tripod vanished into the embers and smouldered deep within it. With a rattle, the skeleton on the granite catafalque disintegrated once more into a hundred charred, black bones of various sizes.

And the parchment on the lectern covered in necromantic hieroglyphics, stained with blood and caked in dove feathers, suddenly caught fire, curled up, blackened. And disintegrated.

It became horribly cold. The magic which a moment before had filled the crypt like warm glue vanished. Utterly and irreversibly.

The Wallcreeper swore foully.

The Hospitaller gasped. Perhaps a little out of relief.

Magic was occasionally like that. There were days when nothing went right. When everything went wrong. When there was nothing else to do but give up on magic.

Before casting the love spell, Malevolt, as was customary with the Older Tribes, donned a wreath of dried stalks. He looked so ridiculous in it that Reynevan could barely keep a straight face.

The love spell was astonishingly simple: the beguiler merely sprinkled the pentagram with an extract of gentian and probably borage. He tossed some pine needles onto the glowing coals and sprinkled a few crushed whortleberry leaves on them. He snapped his fingers several times and whistled; the former and the latter were both typical for the Old Magic. But when he began the invocation, he used a verse from the Song of Songs.