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"Time runs short," the voice of Michael Scot murmured. "I must return at once,
or abide another turning of the Wheel." The voice throbbed with sudden,
desperate appeal. "By all that is holy, if thou be truly brother, I charge thee to
release me! Release me, while I yet have a living body to return to!"
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r r
"And so we shall," Adam promised in swift assurance, "but first I beg you to tell
us - if you know - who summoned you and why."
"Rievers from the Dark Road& ." Scot's tone seemed increasingly distracted.
"They wanted my book, my gold - the philosophers' gold that is the secret to
unlock all other secrets! They bound me, and I was powerless to hold back the
knowledge of the treasure's resting place."
Scot's voice broke into a dry sob, and McLeod's blue eyes closed as a spasm of
pain wracked his body.
"The book and the gold are guarded," the wizard's voice continued raggedly, "but
the Rievers may yet prevail, through the power they have usurped." The eyes
blazed up at Adam once again. "Swear to me that thou shall pursue them, and I
shall give thee freely what they took from me by force!"
"I swear it!" Adam said. "By my Office, as Master of the Hunt, I swear that I will
do my utmost to see justice done."
This declaration won a grim nod of acceptance from Scot. Triumphant, he turned
his compulsion on Peregrine. All at once the artist found himself entrapped by
the burning gaze, unable to look away. Pain lanced his eyes, bringing with it a
flood-tide of mental pictures, compelling him to put pencil to paper. His present
surroundings forgotten, he lost himself in a feverish race to sketch down
everything that passed before his inner eye.
A castle on a low cliff& a sweep of dark water below. A crescent of pebbled
beach& a rock-bound cave. His pencil flying, Peregrine filled the next several
pages of his sketchbook at a speed he could not control. By the time Scot at last
released him, his whole hand was aching with strain. Without volition, his fingers
flexed to relieve their cramping, his pencil slipping from fingers too numb to
retain their grip.
The pencil struck the bare floor with a wooden clatter. Adam shot Peregrine a
lightning glance, then returned to face Scot. For an instant they locked eyes. Then
Adam made a sign between them in the air.
"By the authority of the Seven do I release you, brother," he declared in a deep
voice that rang clear as a bell. "Go in peace, to fulfill your appointed destiny."
Air left McLeod's lungs in a rush. He breathed in again sharply and lurched
against the autopsy table. The corpse before him seemed all at once to fold
inward on itself. Under Peregrine's incredulous gaze, it crumbled in seconds into
so much powdery grey dust.
In the same instant, McLeod lost his precarious balance and crumpled to his
knees, his breath now coming swift and hard. Adam had darted around the head
of the table at the first sign of distress, and had an arm under his even as he
collapsed in a faint. Propping the inspector upright against his knee, he groped in
his pocket for an ammonia capsule, which he snapped open with a flick of his
thumb and passed under McLeod's nose.
"Steady, old friend," Adam murmured, as McLeod twitched and tried to escape
the pungent aroma. Relentlessly Adam brought it under his patient's nose again.
This time the inspector managed a speechless jerk of his head and opened his
eyes, though they still were not quite focusing properly.
"Good man!" Adam's voice reassured, as he shifted to press two fingers to the
other man's carotid pulse. "You're doing just fine. Don't try to move too quickly,
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r r
though. I think he must have pulled out faster than you were expecting."
"Och, aye, he did that," McLeod muttered, sitting up cautiously with Adam's help
and taking several deep, ragged breaths. "God, I hate it when they do that! My
head feels like to explode."
"You'll be all right in a few minutes," Adam replied. "Do you want to try
standing?"
"Aye."
With Adam's help, McLeod got his feet under him and climbed to his feet, bracing
himself on the edge of the table again, apparently unperturbed that the body was
now but a narrow mound of dust. Adam, when he was satisfied that the other
man had his legs firmly under him again, stood back and banished the protective
warding on the table with a swift sequence of gestures. Only then did he seem to
remember that Peregrine was there.
"I hope all this didn't frighten you," he said. "What did you get?"
The artist was clutching his sketchbook to his chest like a life-preserver, his owl-
eyed concern for McLeod only gradually fading as he realized the inspector was
safe and that Adam was speaking to him. In response to Adam's look of inquiry,
he blinked and hazarded a wan grin.
"Well, I got something, from somewhere," he said, looking from one to the other
of them uncertainly. "Inspector, when you started staring at me, pictures came
into my head, and I couldn't make them stop. And then my - hand started
drawing, and I couldn't make it stop, either."
McLeod chuckled mirthlessly. "It wasn't me, laddie," he murmured.
"You're implying that it was Michael Scot, then," Peregrine said uneasily. "I
suppose that's a relief, because - well, I certainly didn't dream this up by myself." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]