Novel Treatments / Everto Cruroranhel, Chapter Two - Voco Anihilo (Analysis)

Chapter Two
Voco Anihilo

Morrus Cruroranhel held onto the splintering rung tightly with one hand as he caught his breath, his taught muscles barely visible beneath the layers that had come with middle age. He hooked his elbow around the rung, passed his torch from one hand to the other and lifted his un-hooked arm to wipe the sweat off of his brow.
He had not climbed this ladder in a long time and he didn’t remember it being so tall.
Holding the flaming torch in his left hand he pulled himself up, rung by rung, with his right arm. Long gone were the days where he could race up a ladder in a matter of seconds, now it took a few minutes at least. Even his eyesight was failing, once he wouldn’t have needed a torch in the darkness but now it was essential, for without one everything would just be a blur of grey shapes.
As his head poked through the tiny opening into the attic he laid his torch down on the dusty floorboards and heaved himself into the low roof space.
He knelt for a moment and breathed heavily, he certainly wasn’t young anymore. Lifting the torch and looking around the attic he noticed that someone had been here, the old chest was sitting, lid ajar, in the centre of the attic. The sheet that had once covered it was lying in a crumpled mess over by the west wall.
Morrus walked across to the chest on his knees, in order to avoid bumping his balding head on the low ceiling. He held the torch over the open chest, hoping that it was still there. He cursed under his breath, as he had suspected the old green book was gone, stolen. He would have to complete the ritual from memory.
Morrus crawled across the room to an old liquor cabinet. The doors swung open surprisingly easily, he had expected at least a rusty squeak but the steel hinges seemed to be in perfect condition despite being forgotten in the hidden attic for fifteen years. Morrus lifted a square of thick crimson velvet out of the cabinet and laid it down flat next to the trapdoor, in front of the wolfskin sofa. On this velvet he placed six small crystals, each about the size of the palm of his hand. He lifted the corners of the velvet together and tied them into a neat package with a delicate silk rope. Turning back to the cabinet, he lifted out a larger crystal that had been cut into the shape of a sphere, a knife with a ruby blade, a stick of charcoal and a small silver goblet intricately decorated so that the base looked like an eagle’s talon, the rim was encrusted with emeralds and rubies.
Morrus lifted the lid back onto the wooden chest and slid it against the west wall, where it belonged.
He placed three of the crystals on the bare wooden floor and arranged them to make the corners of a triangle, with the other three he made an overlapping, inverted triangle. Using the charcoal he drew in the outline of each triangle, creating a six pointed star. In the centre of the star he placed the crystal orb.

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