"With the word Nednal, formed by Roderick, who died to deliver it, I call."
Nednal, by Roderick....
"With the word Cyphertan, formed in his last breath by Cedrick, I call."
Cyphertan, by Cedrick, yes, spoke the spirit, bring me and our new world!
"With the word Lanhadruf, formed by James, who carried it leagues before he succumbed, and delivered at last by his son Hal, I call."
Lanhadruf, by James!
"With the word Mannivandal, formed by Edmond, I call."
Mannivandal, yes....
Miranda stopped for a second and breathed.
Nartedti, by Lucas.
"All these things I speak in remembrance of the formers, but now cast I the word Gremfhel, by Stephen."
What?
"And all the work of Stephen's comrades remembered, I banish this resident spirit."
But they can only be spoken once! This is...
"Be gone, Dervish," Miranda whispered, and the spirit howled and Miranda saw images of a dream disappear with him, gone, and she was alone.
And when morning came, Miranda rose and went to the well. For she had another spell to cast, and years and years of work before her.
Diana L. Paxson
"Like I was tellin' ye, Mistress Erne, there's not much left of the old place now—" Sean McMurtry's voice grated on the words. His son Luke hauled back on the reins and the pony halted.
My fingers clenched in the folds of my traveling cape as I looked at the ruins of Carricknahorna Hall, trying to reconcile these rotting timbers with my father's stories of the warm and welcoming house in which he had been born. Blackened timbers rose from a rubble of masonry, stark against the gray stone of the escarpment from which the place took its name. On my left, to the west, the land fell away into a tangle of wood and farmland, and to the east I could see the blue glitter of Lough Arrow through the trees.
My poor father, I thought with a sorrow worn to a dull ache in the months since I had left India, perhaps it was a mercy you died without seeing what has become of your home. But Carricknahorna was all he had possessed to leave me. With neither the beauty nor the wealth to attract a suitable husband even had I desired one, what was I to do now? I could feel McMurtry's concern like the slow warmth of a peat fire, and the hotter flare of his son's sympathy.
"The agent wrote there had been a fire," I said carefully, using disciplines I had learned in the East to banish panic. "But I thought that the rest of the house—"
McMurtry shook his head. "It was seven years ago, and what the fire left the weather's done for. The coasts of Sligo can breed fierce storms, though you might not think it now with the sky so smiling. It's been over a dozen years since we've had such a wet summer, and if the harvest fails again—but such talk is foolish..." he broke off, shaking his head.
I looked at him and shivered. My father's fellow officers had joked about how cold they found Ireland when they came home on leave. I, who had been born and raised in India, felt chilly even in June. This land was green as India during the monsoons, but instead of the hot embrace of the sun, a veil of silver mist wrapped the land. I had come here eager to learn what mysteries that veil might conceal. But at this moment the cold was all I could feel.
"A blackguard the agent is not to have told ye, but he's not been here himself in many a year." McMurtry grimaced. "And you are the last of the Family. I suppose now you'll be selling off the land...."