Circle of Nine: Circle of Nine Trilogy 1 (38 page)

Snowing rose petals in her mouth, filling her brain with scent.

All she could sense with the ravaged fragments of her mind that remained was a terrible, rotten odour filling the chapel. The stench of piss and shit and death and something worse . . . shadows had begun to thicken and form amid the excited congregation. An image slowly formed in the girl’s mind. An old woman, the oldest woman she had ever seen, a woman who could not possibly be human. She looked almost like a spider with her white hair sticking out from her oval head, and her weary, ancient eyes. The girl had done voluntary work in her local nursing home, but this woman was far, far older than anyone she had met there.

She was in an unusual room, a room that the girl nonetheless recognised to be a kitchen. There were esoteric symbols placed around her. Bunches of herbs hung everywhere. The girl sniffed the aromatic odour in her mind, trying to escape the smells of hell that now surrounded her in the chapel.

To the rear of the ancient spider woman was a young woman with short, golden hair. She was the most beautiful woman the girl had ever seen, and again she realised she could not be human, as even the supermodels and movie stars on Earth came nowhere near the beauty this fairy-like woman possessed.

To her side was another woman, with dark hair and a pretty face. Out of the three, her face was the kindest, the strongest. She was also the one of the trio who looked the most human, but the young girl recognised that she was not. If anything, the woman who looked the most human of the trio was also in a way the most disturbingly otherworldly. The dark-haired woman was as human as a candle flame, or a breath of wind.

The two young women did not appear to notice her scrutiny; both had their eyes closed as they chanted, but the ancient woman was looking directly at the girl. A faint spark of hope resonated from within her when she realised the ancient hag might be an angel or a spirit guide. She knew such things occurred and that angels appeared in all forms — she had seen a television program about them. The ancient one nodded a greeting to the girl. Her pale, all-seeing eyes were the most compassionate and wise eyes the girl had ever seen. Her shock began to recede slightly. Perhaps she had been saved by God!

Oh God, the snow roses were filling her mouth, settling in her throat.

‘Hello, Sharon.’ A voice in her head, the voice of the old angel. The ancient angel held out wrinkled, fragile hands.

‘Release your sparrow,’ the voice urged.

The girl moaned softly, in confusion. She had no idea what the angel meant.

‘Release your sparrow,’ the angel repeated urgently.

A faint memory began to stir in the girl’s primordial brain. She felt her heart move within her, desperate to be free. A slow tear trickled down her cheek with fear when she realised what the angel was ordering. But how could she disobey a messenger of God?

‘What they will do to you is worse than death, my brave child,’ the angel said. ‘Release your sparrow. I promise you I will care for it!’

Memories from the other world flooded the girl, wedding her to her physical form. The formal she was to attend in a month’s time. Richard Brown, who she was still hoping would call and ask to escort her. Her mother, who would never recover from the loss of her youngest girl, and her dog Mandy, who was her best friend. Tears fell from her cheeks. She was young; death shouldn’t strike so early, it shouldn’t touch those of her age!

‘There is no choice!’ the angel insisted. ‘Quickly now, before he rises! Come to me now!’

At last, abandoning everything to pure instinct, the girl gave her life up to the angel. Her last breath left her body, her last tear fell, her last memory died, her heart stopped. Her sparrow flew.

Snow roses were settling on her still body, covering her open mouth and eyes.

*

Caught in the ecstasy of the sexual energy they were creating, the Azephim at first failed to observe that their bride for the Phooka was now dead. It was Sati who smelt the fresh corpse. Abruptly she ceased her frantic gyrations with the altar boy and drew her full black lips backward in a ferocious snarl. The angels’ orgy ceased as rapidly as it had begun. Silence filled the Chapel of the Damned, broken only by the organ player’s tentative striking of a last, extraneous chord.

*

A hand broke through the soil from the underground, gnarled and twisted, black and shining. It paused, illuminated by the soft glow of the moon. A terrible stirring began in the earth. All beings of Eronth felt the altered vibration and trembled, united in their fear. In his cave beneath the snowbound earth the Phooka sniffed the dead air, sensing the Azephim call. An expectant smile flickered across his goat-like face. It had been a full four seasons since he had last walked above ground and many, many seasons since he had last mated. Hibernating in his cave, oblivious to the passing of time, he steadily accumulated the shadow side of the Eronthites, gaining in power as he slept. Now the Phooka was hungry. He thrust a second black arm upwards through the soil, and brought his hand to rest on the cold ground above. It was time to rise.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

‘H
ail, Great Hecate, Goddess of the Moon. To you all roads must lead us, oh Great Hecate! Let us hear the voice! Oh Great Hecate, comforter, consoler, giver of peace and rest. Let our dear ones who have gone before us return this night to make merry with us. May we meet and know, and remember and love them again. Oh Great Hecate, let us hear the voice! Lighter of darkness, give us a sign!’

I glanced anxiously at Khartyn and Rosedark through my black veil as we continued our invocation to Hecate. I had no idea what I dreaded more, Hecate arriving for a cup of tea with her dead friends in tow or Hecate not arriving at all. Rosedark, under Khartyn’s directions, had led many of the chants tonight. The Crone had reasoned she had recently died and therefore the birth cord linking her to Hecate was stronger.

Under my veil I was perspiring heavily. We had been chanting for hours with no sign of abating. I was under no illusions about the awesome, destructive effect of the Phooka. I could virtually see the tangible fear that enveloped Eronth shimmering in the air.

‘When he walks, there are ripple effects on all known worlds,’ Khartyn had informed me grimly.

When I had pressed her for more information she did not reply, but I had received a montage of disturbing visions of dolphins and whales beaching, of wars breaking out across the worlds, of Azephim and Solumbi beginning to cross in rapidly increasing numbers to feed on Earth.

All the hours we had been chanting there had been no response from Hecate. A part of me was aware that snow was falling delicately outside. Normally such a spectacle would have filled me with delight, but now I was engrossed in our call. Privately, I was beginning to wonder if Hecate would ever bother responding. She might still be harbouring resentment against the Crone for her retrieval of Rosedark from her collection of the dead. Indeed, the only energy that had entered Dome Cottage in the last few hours was, incongruously, a small sparrow, which had flown swiftly to Khartyn. I noted the gentle, respectful manner in which the Crone had placed the tiny bird near her heart in a top pocket of her black gown. But there had been no Phooka, Hecate or dead visitors.

Suddenly I felt a sensation of my hand pushing through chalk, earth and icy snow. Khartyn nodded. ‘Yea! He’s rising!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you feel him, Emma? Ah, indeed there is no separation. None at all. As he rises, so do we rise!’

We resumed our chant with new vigour.

‘Hail, Great Hecate!’

Abruptly the Crone raised her hand, silencing us. ‘She’s here! Quickly! Bind Emma’s eyes!’

Rosedark obediently covered my eyes with a black scarf. Terrified, I was only aware of the pounding of my heart and my treacherous fear which swam greedily around me.

Death entered the room. And she was not alone this time.

Her cold chill hung in the air. The tramp of many feet, and then chairs being scraped back. The stench of death was overpowering. I fought to stop myself from dry-retching, relieved only by the flimsy protection the scarf offered against the sickening odour. I trembled to think what I would see if I removed the veil.

‘Hail, Hecate, and welcome to you, visitors of the dead!’ Khartyn began.

‘Why have you summoned me here, Crone?’

I recoiled in horror at the sound of Hecate’s voice. It invoked too many memories of too many deaths, too many lives, too many births.

‘You know why, Hecate. The Azephim have invoked Phooka. They have abducted a Bluite, transgressed Eronth laws and offered an unwilling gift for him.’

‘Yes, with which you interfered, Crone!’ Hecate hissed.

There was a pause. I heard the Crone move toward Hecate. ‘Aye. Her sparrow is yours, Hecate. I was merely keeping it safe and warm until you arrived. We need your aid to divert the Phooka.’

Hecate laughed. ‘You’re a fool, Crone. Know not you the Phooka may walk on Salhmain? Wherefore should I curtail his travels?’

‘Because when Phooka realises his little bride is already dead, he will be enraged, and you know very well what that would mean. We cannot afford to lose any lives on Eronth. We also cannot afford any repercussions from the Dreamers if we upset the balance on other worlds, and if Phooka attempts to cross . . .’

‘If I do divert him, what price would you pay, Crone? What would you give me in return? Tonight is mine above all other nights. Tonight occupies me, the Great Mother of death, more so than any other. What would an ambitious Crone offer Death to render the task worth her while?’

‘Name your price,’ Khartyn said softly.

There came an extended pause. I listened avidly, icy terror stabbing at my soul as I attempted to work out what was occurring only inches from me. Then I felt hot breath upon my face. I became engulfed in the sensation of a tomb. A very faint memory of cremating a body, a child’s body enclosed within the Ra’s tomb, came into my mind.

‘I want the life of her child,’ Hecate announced. ‘The Chosen One known as Maya.’

I recoiled.

‘That price is out of the question,’ Khartyn replied. ‘Maya has a destiny to fulfil in Eronth with the Azephim. The Dreamers would never agree to such a bargain as that.’

‘Maybe so,’ rejoined Hecate. ‘But her destiny will be fulfilled three and thirty summers hence.’

‘Take me in her place,’ I pleaded through the scarf.

Hecate laughed. ‘I shall take you anyway, child! Nay, it is Maya, or it is nothing. What say you, Crone?’

I felt my stomach explode with light. The reality of the being within flooded all my systems. Before, the child had been merely a shock, a nuisance, even a concept; all in all just another strand of the illusion. Now the strand had a definite sex, it had a name. Maya. It had a destiny. The fetus within me moved and spoke and the words hung clearly on the air for us all to hear.

‘I am Maya. Hear me! I accept Hecate’s conditions!’ It was a tiny, silvery voice, like a bell, but it contained immense power.

‘Good! The matter is settled.’ Hecate was now placated, almost pleased. ‘The Chosen One will have three and thirty summers to fulfil her destiny. When this span is complete I shall come for her.’

‘And what of my request?’ Khartyn asked evenly.

‘Fear not, Crone. I shall divert your Phooka. Hecate will lead him a merry dance, worry you not. And as for you, Bluite who is Bindisore, I shall return for you!’

There was a final wheezing laugh, and then the smell of rotting flesh began to lift in Dome Cottage. I could hear chairs and the unmistakable sounds of the procession of the dead departing. Then Khartyn gently removed the blindfold. I gasped. Standing directly in front of me, right between Khartyn and Rosedark, was my aunt Johanna.

Salhmain — that mystical moment in time that belongs to neither past or present. The Dreamers dream a moment that does not belong in any of the worlds.

Salhmain — the Turn of the Wheel when the veil between worlds is transparently thin. A time when it is possible for all Crossas to slip between worlds. A night of great mischief and of primordial chaos.

Seated at Khartyn’s familiar wooden table I could hardly believe the apparition that was opposite me. She appeared unchanged from the faint memories that I carried of her.

Ageless, deathless, birthless and changeless.

My aunt grimaced, her dark hair as unruly as I remembered it, as if she had just run her hands through it. I had forgotten how many freckles she had and how intense her eyes actually were. ‘Well,’ she said, brushing a tanned hand self-consciously through her tousled hair, ‘I had to present myself to you in a form you would recognise!’

An ovoid white shape shimmered around her.

‘Don’t question me too much, Emma,’ Johanna said sharply, reading my mind. ‘Your mind would never understand the mystery. Just accept it is Salhmain, the opening between the worlds, and I am Hecate’s gift to you!’

I was reminded of the bargain Maya had struck with Hecate and I began to shiver with shock. Khartyn seated herself next to Johanna and poured spiced ginger mead for both of us.

‘Don’t be hard on yourself,’ she told me. ‘The soul decided, not you. Emma, it was likely already ordained by the Dreamers that Maya’s time in her Maya body would be thirty-three years. The decision was directed by the Dream.’

My wretched expression must have moved her to some measure of pity, for then she said, ‘I will consult with Mary. We will approach the Dreamers through meditation, to see if they will override the contract that Maya made.’

‘I’m coming too! Please, Khartyn, can we go first thing in the morning?’ I asked.

Then I saw the look that was exchanged between Khartyn and Johanna and I froze.

‘What is it?’ I asked, dreading the answer.

Johanna stood, the ovoid light still pulsating around her, although I noticed it was not quite so bright.

‘It’s time, Emma,’ she said softly.

I stared at her, deliberately misunderstanding. In reality I knew exactly what she had in store for me.

‘I’ve come to lead you back to Earth,’ Johanna said. ‘We can do it easily now — tonight the veils are open between the worlds and the crossing will be very much easier for it. The dead are being summoned back to Earth to revisit loved and grieving ones, and Hecate has given her permission for me to lead you in the procession.’

‘No!’ I exclaimed.

An icy feeling of rejection swept over me. ‘I belong here! I belong with Khartyn and Rosedark! Maya belongs here! She is the child of the Stag Man! I am half-Azephim! Half-angel! I belong!’ My voice cracked with emotion.

‘No, Emma,’ Johanna corrected me firmly. ‘You are also Bluite. Maya is a Crossa, one of the most powerful Crossas that the worlds have known in feminine form. She requires that she be born on Earth so she can study Bluite ways until she is called. You are forgetting the ways of your own people. You need to return. In any case, Maya will be better protected on Earth where the Azephim cannot reach her as easily.’

‘If you send me back there you condemn me to a living hell!’ I retorted. ‘I can do so much good here. I can help to recharge the Eom, challenge Sati. What will I do back on Earth? Sit around and watch television and paint awful paintings.?’

Johanna was not to be dissuaded. ‘On Earth you’ll have plenty to do, don’t you worry about that! You have your child to raise, a child to whom you owe the gift of a happy and stable life, a normal life. Don’t indulge yourself that you have a choice, Emma. The Dreamers have placed you on Earth for a reason. A Crossa crosses when the Dreamers direct! Now, you can come easily and walk the journey with me, or we can manipulate you etherically so you walk the journey with me. Either way it’s the same result. But we have little time, so decide!’

I looked helplessly from Johanna to Khartyn and Rosedark. The enormity of the moment overwhelmed my emotions. My heart chakra spun frantically as a million memories of my time with the Crone and her apprentice played out within me. The first time I had crossed and they had fought off the assailant Solumbi. Working with them both for hours in the enchanted cottage garden, with Khartyn lecturing on herbal lore. The Cone of Power ritual they had generously shared with me.

A swirling abundance of haunting moments which depicted their love, generosity and friendship hummed within me, and I felt my heart contract painfully with the poignancy of saying goodbye. Then Rosedark, radiant as ever, stood before me, all the jealousy gone from her eyes, and she looked as shattered as I felt to be saying goodbye, her lilac eyes dimmed with sadness.

‘Merry part, Emma!’ she said sadly. ‘Never before have I heard such beauty when you released your sparrow and offered your soul to me. I shall never forget you. I am not surprised that the Old Mother holds you in such high regard. Harvest well. May the Old Mother always hold you tight. Blessed Be, Honoured Bluite!’

‘Blessed Be,’ I rejoined weakly through a closed and aching throat. Then the Crone stood before me, her ancient, primordial eyes giving strength to my shattered emotions.

‘I am your mother. You are my child. There is no separation between us, not ever. I am always with you, until the end of all the worlds. May the darkness give light and be merciful, and may the Dreamers sleep in peace.’

She made the sign of the pentacle over me. blessing me.

‘Come on, Emma!’ Johanna stood impatiently, holding out her hand. ‘It is time to depart. Hecate grows impatient.’

I need more time
, I thought desperately. I need to sit down and talk to Khartyn properly, find out the answers to all the questions I have. Khartyn shook her head in warning to me, then took my hand and joined it to Johanna’s. She stood back. I was trembling, eyes fastened on Khartyn’s face. I’m sure I saw my pain echoed in her eyes as I tried frantically to record every detail of that wizened, beautiful, aching, unforgettable face. Then the world turned to light.

*

Hecate stood watching the Phooka, a solitary black figure moving against the pristine icy landscape. When he spied the Goddess he snarled. From the endless belly of his being he spat poisonous barbs at her. Hecate stood — legs astride, arms outreached — taking his poison and all his putrefying energy into herself, transmuting it. The Phooka growled louder when he realised Hecate was charging herself on his energy. His long claws reached for her. Hecate smiled beneath her veils. This was the moment that never failed to enrapture her the most. She unclipped her veil and drew it back over her head. A shrill scream escaped the Phooka. Quickly he fled for the sanctuary of his cave, panicked at the prospect of sighting the Death Queen’s deadly face. Hecate refastened her veil and gave benediction to the moon. She informed her lunar witness that the Phooka would not be walking this Salhmain. The moon began to broadcast the message to all of Eronth.

*

Back inside the North Tower, Sati anxiously scanned her serving mirror. Her mouth worked furiously, Ishran entwined around her and urging for an interpretation of her divining.

‘The Crone taught the Bluite how to give up her sparrow!’ Sati hissed furiously. ‘Hecate has taken the Phooka’s energy into herself, draining him and forcing his retreat underground.’