“Why, yes,” she said, and handed him the wand. “It is here for you. Use it, Bishop.”
He took it, his eyes never leaving her face. “I don’t know what to do with it.”
“You will tell it what you want.”
Tell a stupid old stick that he wanted to go down in a black hole? Suddenly he felt it growing even warmer in his hand. He wasn’t imagining it. The thing was pulsing warmth through him. He swallowed, realizing for the first time that he held something he shouldn’t be holding, something that was powerful and beyond what any mortal could or should know.
He closed his eyes for a moment, saw clearly the gleaming wand in the prince’s hand, saw the lighter, glowing wand in Brecia’s hand, both radiating such power that it made him tremble inside.
And now there was a wand in his own hand.
Bishop said nothing more. He walked to the edge of the black hole and looked down into the pure black pit.
He pointed the wand directly into the hole and said, feeling both foolish and hopeful, “Give me light so that I may see to the bottom of the hole.”
To their utter astonishment, the black hole became instantly filled with stark white light. He looked down, blinked, then began to laugh. He turned back to look at Merryn, who was staring into the white light. “I still can’t see,” he said. “The white is just as strong as the black.” Someone, something, was playing tricks on him.
“Let me see to the bottom, damn you!”
He waved the wand into the hole, and instantly the light, the darkness, were no more. The light was perfectly clear now. Bishop knelt beside the edge and looked down. He saw that the hole went down only about twenty feet, not all that deep. And at the bottom he saw something else, something that seemed to shimmer, something small, casting out a golden light that made the very air quiver.
“No, Bishop, don’t.”
“I must,” he said, and poked the wand into the hole. “Take me there.”
He was standing at the bottom in an instant, looking up at Merryn’s face staring down at him over the side. “Don’t fall in.”
“Bring me down there with you.”
Bishop said as he waved the wand up toward her, “Bring Merryn down here with me.”
She was standing right in front of him, breathing hard because she was so excited and so afraid that she was nearly ready to puke with it.
She whispered, her voice sounding like fine dust in the air, “By all the saints’ knobbled knees, Bishop, what does this mean?”
“It means,” he said, drawing her against him, “that we have found something we were meant to find. At last. And it was the wand that brought us here.”
“This is very frightening,” she said into his tunic, which smelled of male sweat and thus of him. “Nothing is as it should be. You actually waved that wand at me, and suddenly I was here with you.”
“I know,” he said. “I know, but it will be all right.” Then, as one, with no more words between them, both of them turned to see a gleaming golden cask on the floor. Its surface wasn’t dulled or covered with millennium-old dirt. It looked as fresh and clean as it had been when it had been sent here. Sent here by whom?
Bishop studied the cask. It was longer than it was wide, maybe the length from his fingertips to his elbow, and maybe a hand’s height high. Its lid looked to be solid gold. It was encrusted with diamonds and rubies and emeralds, on the top and on the sides, some of the gems larger than anything he’d ever seen or heard of.
They went down on their knees. Bishop gently laid the wand on the ground beside him. He reached out his hand and lightly touched his fingertips to the top of the small chest.
He jerked his hand back. The lid was colder to the touch than the ice that had covered London and the Thames the past February.
Merryn frowned, touched it herself. It was so burning cold that she yelped and fell back on her bottom, holding her fingers.
“This is very curious,” she said, crawling back up. “The instant I moved my fingers, the pain was gone.”
Bishop pulled Merryn close, took the hem of her gown, and wrapped it round and round his fingers. He drew in a deep breath and touched the cask again. It was icy cold, but he could bear it. He saw the keyhole, felt its outline. He felt the key, tried to turn it. He thought his fingers would freeze off his hands.
He wrapped his fingers even more, and tried to turn the small key. But it didn’t move. He sat back on his haunches and stared at the damned thing.
He’d been led here, given the wand, the cask, but—Bishop picked up the wand and aimed it at the cask. “Open the cask.”
The key turned and the cask lid flew open. A hellacious noise sprang up, like a thousand maddened animals were all around them, charging, drawing closer and closer until it seemed they were right on top of them, closing over them, suffocating then, wanting to destroy them, swallow them.