It is on this invisible blood I focus. I still believe in the miracle of this blood. My belief is born of experience. I have seen it bring a friend back to life. My belief is stronger than evil incantations spoken to cruel spirits, and bloody pentagrams drawn on forsaken cliffs. I made a serious mistake by stealing the girl's heart, but now I will give my own heart in exchange for hers. And in exchange for my life, for just a second of time, I ask for the power that my daughter already gave to me. I ask it out of favor toK alika, whom I am sure would not want her mother to go down without a final chance of victory. Yes, I have the nerve to remind God that he owes me for my daughter's sacrifice. But I also have the faith to believe he hears me.
And my faith is stronger than stone.
Landulf lifts the spear. "You had better hurry."
I feel my mind touch the nail.
"Yes," I whisper. "Hurry."
I feel my heart touch it. Caress it.
And I know beyond all doubt it once touched Christ.
Landulf shoulders the spear. "You die now, Sita."
The nail trembles. My hand remains firm. My gaze.
Power sweeps over me from way beyond the circle.
"No," I say. "Evil one, you die."
Landulf starts to let the spear fly.
The nail flies out of my palm and is impaled in his forehead.
Between his eyebrows. He stares at me through a red river.
"You," he says, and drops the spear.
I leap to his side and catch the spear before it lands.
The nail has plunged all the way in.
"I take back what I said a moment ago," I say. "You are not so clever."
I stick the spear in his heart, and his blood spurts out, even into the center of the pentagram, where it is mysteriously consumed in midair. He tries to speak one last time, probably to curse my soul for all of time, but he is staggering blindly with a long spear thrust through him and a nail in his brain. He makes the serious mistake of stumbling into the center region of the five-pointed star he has drawn with his wife's blood, and there something truly awful happens. In a sickeningly wet sound, his clothes and flesh are simultaneously ripped from his body. For a moment he is a carved cadaver risen from an autopsy table. Then invisible claws go around his head, and he is pulled down and backward, into a pit of nothingness. He just vanishes and I am so grateful that I fall to my knees and weep for a long time.
The spear and nail remain where they have fallen from his body. Theyl ie in the center of the circle. And I know the power of the circle has been broken.
Eventually I climb down the cliff, and walk toward the ocean. I swim away from the hordes of Moslems, who only stare at me as I step onto the beach covered with blood from their dead benefactor. Perhaps they are afraid to touch me, I don't know. But they must have heard stories about Landulf s castle.
The place where magic was performed.
I swim through the waves beyond the invading army.
Beyond reason. The water is clean and stretches forever.
Yet I feel as if I will never be clean again.
16
When I reach the clear pool of water that same evening, Dante is not there. His absence hits me like a wall. It was too much to hope, I know. But as I sit exhausted beside the pond and stare at the reflection of the vanishing sunlight and the slow emergence of the stars, I ponder the unfairness of life. Here was Dante, a simple man who would give his life for a just cause, killed out of love for me. And here am I, a monster, who will easily kill, and I am still alive. God had granted me a miracle that very morning, yet I feel I would trade all of his grace just to see my friend for a few minutes.
But the night grows darker and still Dante does not come.
He is dead, I know. Death is all I know.
There is blood on my left hand.
The hand that stole the girl's life.
Funny I hadn't noticed it before. Leaning over the pond, I place my hand in the water and try to wash offthe dark red stain.
But it does not come off. I wonder why.
"Good. You have passed the first step of initiation. The second step will come later, and then the final and third step."
Killing the girl had been the second step.
Or so he said. That Prince of Lies.
He is dead now. He will say no more.
Not to me. There will be no third initiation.
I scrub my hand fiercely. To no avail.
I have never seen a stain like this before.
"But I am sorry for what I did," I tell the starry pond. "You know I had to do it. I had no choice."
If I am explaining to God, he does not answer me.
But once more my memory of the future is clear. Perhaps the pond acts as a catalyst. It is every bit as clear and round as the one Alandaled me to. And as I could at that watery oasis, I imagine that I can see more reflected stars than I can in the sky itself. My sudden grip on reality makes me marvel at how much my memory faltered while I was embarked on my dark adventure. MaybeL andulf had been blocking me. Maybe my deep-seated fears distorted my memory. I could have tricked myself into not knowing the horrors that awaited me. Or perhaps it was all a function of coming back in time.