Outside, in the lower part of the ruined castle, about fifty metres from the keep, the ritual was proceeding.
It had started at moonrise, led by Gagniere, who officiated bare-headed, dressed in a ceremonial robe. He chanted in the ancient draconic tongue, a language which his audience did not understand but whose power, beyond its actual meaning, resonated in the depths of their being. Their souls aquiver, the candidates for initiation listened, taken over by a sacred fervour.
Then the vicomtesse, still masked, solemnly entered the pool of warm light from the torches and bonfires, and took up her place behind the carved altar. There was a heavy silence while Gagniere stepped back to her side and, with lowered head and hands crossed upon his belly, adopted a meditative pose. She then began, also using the draconic tongue, the long litany of Ancestral Dragons, invoking their true names and asking for their protection. This took some time, as each Ancestral Dragon had to be addressed by its title and its closest family ties. And the names she pronounced before each panegyric were moreover repeated by Gagniere in his role as First Initiate, and then taken up in chorus by the entire audience.
Finally, the vicomtesse opened a casket placed on the altar and took out the Sphere d'Ame which she brandished in her outstretched arms. Still speaking in the draconic language, she called upon Sassh'Krecht, the Ancestral Dragon whose primordial essence haunted the globe with its black turmoil. Now, she recited all of Sassh'Krecht's parents and descendants, titles, legendary exploits, and, as she declaimed them, the atmosphere around her filled with a presence that was as exalting as it was frightening, originating from the beginning of time and soon to be resurrected in defiance of the laws of nature.
At this point, beginning with Gagniere and with Saint-Georges just behind him, the faithful filed past the altar in good order, each knelt at the vicomtesse's feet, placed their lips upon the Sphere d'Ame which she had lowered to their height, and then went to stand in a long row. By their kiss, they had signified their assent. Ready to sacrifice a part of themselves, they waited for Sassh'Krecht to manifest itself and impregnate their soul.
In a trance, the vicomtesse de Malicorne raised the globe toward the moon. She shouted a command. Whirlwinds lifted around her. Above the castle, the clouds in the sky suddenly dispersed, as if driven away by a centrifugal force. Black and grey plumes escaped from the paling Sphere d'Ame. They rose in long ribbons as a dull noise filled the night and, little by little, they formed the shape of a giant spectral dragon which reared up, deployed its wings, and occupied an immense span of the sky. Sassh'Krecht had survived death for centuries now, a prisoner of the Sphere d'Ame where all of its power had been concentrated. It gloried in the freedom which it had now almost completely recovered, only its tail still attached to the relic the vicomtesse gripped in her hands, her body traversed by ecstatic shivers. It simply needed to take possession of the souls that its disciples were offering freely.
No one heard the shot, but all of them saw the Sphere d'Ame, now milky white, burst into shatters.
The vicomtesse screamed and collapsed. The entire gathering suffered an enormous shock that left it reeling and Sassh'Krecht emitted a cavernous howl that shook the members of the Black Claw to the core. Detached from the Sphere d'Ame before it had managed to become fully incarnate, the Ancestral Dragon contorted like an animal trapped in a blazing fire that was devouring it.
Gagniere was the first to react.
He rushed over to the unconscious vicomtesse, crouched down, lifted her up slightly, saw that she was still breathing, and, at a complete loss, looked about him in an effort to comprehend.
Had the ritual failed?
The skies grew dark. Still howling, the spectral dragon twisted in pain as shreds were torn from its ghostly silhouette like wisps of mist. Stormy rumblings were heard. Gold and crimson flashes ripped through the night sky as Sassh'Krecht liberated energy that had to find an outlet.
Gagniere saw the vicomtesse's dragonnet flapping in the air around them. It hissed at him furiously, and then flew off toward the keep. He followed it with his eyes and saw the thin stream of smoke that filtered from an embrasure.
Pistol still smoking in her hand, Agnes dashed down the steps of the tower from where, both hidden and able to observe every detail of the ceremony, she had opened fire. Aware of what was at stake and doubting she would live to see the dawn, she had resolved that as she had nothing to lose. She would wreak as much havoc as possible and wait for the ritual to reach its critical point before she intervened.
Now, she had to make an effort to survive and, perhaps, even to escape.