The Codex Lacrimae: The Book of Tears

Chapter 40: The Designs of Cerys and the Mirror of Carmathen

Clarinda instinctively brought Gungnir in front of her, but the staff wasn't glowing its usual flaring yellow runes. No, Dietrich's spell-casting had saved her life. She saw the dwarf standing in a wide-legged position, his out-flung hands the only visible signs of the protective shield that he'd raised in front of himself and Clarinda.

"Toward him!" Clarinda heard Santini say, but saw only a sphere of Codex-light tinged flames where the knight had been standing. More chunks of masonry fell from the destroyed ceiling, but the burning ball of protection bounced him toward the source of the blast.

Pazzo .. .he's crazy, she thought. Every battle, he runs toward the hottest point! "Vielen dank, Dietrich!"

"Don't thank me yet, Norn," he grunted, glancing at her as he murmured another spell and expanded the shield upward.

"Wait, what are you doing?" she asked, thinking that this might be the moment of the betrayal she'd feared from him. He was cutting them off from Santini!

She started to swing Gungnir, but still holding up one hand, he protected them from a second explosion that punched another hole in the side of the wall.

Dietrich shouted, "Nein! I'm on your side, Clarinda-Urd! Truly. But I sense a witch-sigil nearby. A member of the Coven can't strike us down while we're fighting Abbadon and Huntsmen. Do you agree?"

Clarinda tried to see past the fires roaring down the hallway, and involuntarily ducked as a slab of concrete bounced off Dietrich's defense. The ceiling collapsed and tons of limestone crashed between them and the vanished knight.

Great, Santini. How are we supposed to follow you, now?

"Ja, ja, I agree," she said aloud, replying to Dietrich. "Sorry. What sigil are you talking about?" She held up Gungnir. "Do you mean the runes on the staff?"

"Oh, for Ymir's Sake—Odin save me from untrained Norns!" the dwarf snapped, then twirled his index finger, muttering another spell that ended with the words, "... Glamour, Zeig dich zu mir!"

Clarinda felt an intense heat above her left breast, and quickly withdrew the leather envelope that housed the magical ship, Skíðblaðnir, and ... something else. She withdrew the scrap of tree bark that Servius had given her, and saw that, indeed, there were glowing runes on the wood that hadn't been evident before.

"Ah ... Circe's sign," Dietrich said, then snapped, "Sprechen sie!"

Clarinda Trevisan,a female voice announced in thought-speech, I am Cerys, known by some as Circe the Dream-Witch. If you hear my words, then Servius Aurelius Santini is about to die, either by the Singing Sword of Arngrim, or by some design of the Codex Lacrimae that I cannot foresee. I have seen a vision of him surrounded by Huntsmen, and a ... great darkness, and can only spell-cast to activate this charm when his life is about to end ..."

"Or when a truly remarkable and underestimated Arch-Mage commands it," Dietrich muttered.

... this spell will summon Youdic the Damned, whose screams will open the Ban-Sidhe Tunnel into Annen Verden and allow him—

"Typically traitorous bitch," Dietrich commented, testing the pile of rubble with an experimental spell. Some of the concrete blocks shifted, but nothing else. "It will take too long to try to blast through here. I could flow through the rock, but ... I think you'll need to be with me in the ward."

He glanced at Clarinda, who still held the strip of bark in her hand. "Clarinda, will you stop listening to that chip? It's always the witches that get us in the end ... I tried to tell Taliesin, but did he listen? Does anyone listen?"