“What is that you desire and would do?” asked Noma, in a hushed voice. Bold as she was, the place and the occasion awed her.
“I desire wisdom from the dead!” he answered. “Have I not already told you, and can I not win it with your help?”
“What dead, husband?”
“Umsuka the king. Ah! I served him living, and at the last he drove me away from his side. Now he shall serve me, and out of the nowhere I will call him back to mine.”
“Will not this symbol defeat you?” and Noma pointed at the cross hewn in the granite.
At her words a sudden gust of rage seemed to shake the wizard. His still eyes flashed, his lips turned livid, and with them he spat upon the cross.
“It has no power,” he said. “May it be accursed, and may he who believes therein hang thereon! It has no power; but even if it had, according to the tale of that white liar, such things as I would do have been done beneath its shadow. By it the dead have been raised—ay! dead kings have been dragged from death and forced to tell the secrets of the grave. Come, come, let us to the work.”
“What must I do, husband?”
“You shall sit you there, even as a corpse sits, and there for a little while you shall die—yes, your spirit shall leave you—and I will fill your body with the soul of him who sleeps beneath; and through your lips I will learn his wisdom, to whom all things are known.”
“It is terrible! I am afraid!” she said. “Cannot this be done otherwise?”