Circle of Nine: Circle of Nine Trilogy 1 (11 page)

At that point I felt someone was watching me. I turned to see a woman standing just outside the enchanted garden.

Silence. All that is darkness is mine.
The night seemed to hold its breath. A dark memory stirred within me.

She was very tall, with long dark hair and lips of blood-red hue. Her skin was flawless, like polished white marble. Her face was the face of a saint, light illuminated her, it dripped from her hair, from her eyes. By her side was a black animal that looked to be a cross between a dog and a panther. The woman was beautiful, but her beauty contained the menace of deadly snow. She smiled when she realised I was watching her. She held out a perfect, pale hand.
Come.

‘Emma!’ Khartyn’s voice sang out suddenly, breaking the deadly spell.

I watched in fascination as the woman dematerialised; she snarled as she slowly vanished and I recoiled at the contrast between the madness on her face and her innocent beauty. All that remained of her and her animal familiar were dark shadows. The night began to breathe. The smell of jasmine wafted to me.

Hurriedly, I entered the light of the cottage where Khartyn and Rosedark were seated with mortars and pestles grinding herbs at the cluttered kitchen table. Large bunches of onions and garlic and fruit hung from the beams, as did various shining pots and pans. A tiny owl perched on the table watched with interest as the couple prepared for their ritual. Newspapers were heaped in a corner. It all looked so normal, but it wasn’t. There was something terribly distorted about this world. It reminded me of a stage set for a performance, or one of the freak mirrors that you saw in a circus.

‘Don’t worry about Sati,’ Khartyn said unsmilingly. ‘She can’t get near the cottage. There’s a veil of protection around it. That’s why she’s using her Glamour; she’s trying to draw you outside to her.’

‘Who is she?’ I asked.

‘She was one of my children,’ Khartyn replied sadly. ‘Once, many moon turns ago, Sati was an apprentice of mine as Rosedark is now. But the Dreamers dreamt a different destiny for her.’

Khartyn chuckled with soft irony. ‘She trained with me for many seasons but darkness called to her soul. And she answered to darkness. She fell in love with a creature of the night, a fallen angel. His name is Ishran, the Dark Angel Lord. He sought power over Eronth for himself and his fellow angels and he detected a kindred longing in my poor daughter.

‘So one night when the moons were in the dark of the moons, Sati fled from the cottage with my magical tools. Now Ishran and Sati have formed an alliance with Hades in an attempt to restrain Persephone and keep her underground. The longer she stays in the underworld, the more the Eronthites’ crops are affected, and the danger of famine creeps ever nearer. Which is part of the plan for the Winged Ones, of course.’ Noting the expression on my face, she added, ‘By the Winged Ones I am referring to the Azephim, a race of angels who were banished from the Heztarra Galaxy before time remembered. They are the Fallen Ones, a race of deadly outcasts. Sati, who has already made her presence known to you, is betrothed to Ishran, who has made his home in the Wastelands. The Azephim’s natural home is the Web-Kondoell.’ She paused, and I could sense there was a lot more that she wasn’t telling me.

‘So why did Sati appear to me?’ I asked, not altogether sure I wanted to hear the answer.

Khartyn hesitated before answering. ‘Emma, believe me, you and Sati are no stranger to each other, just as you are no stranger to Rosedark and me. The Dreamers are skilful spiders of illusion who have woven webs between us that entrapped us all long before time began in the great shell. Sati seeks to destroy you as she destroyed your aunt. You have a power that you are unaware of, but it is a power she needs.’

A chill went through me at her words. ‘She destroyed Johanna?’ I asked slowly. Khartyn looked at me with her knowing eyes.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘She set a pack of Solumbi after your aunt. Johanna became far too complacent, may the Dreamers hold her tightly. She was a powerful Crossa, but she was dabbling in some very destructive energies.’

A vision came into my mind of a bird with feathers as dark as coal and eyes that were Sati’s. It was ramming its sharp beak into my aunt’s eyes. I felt myself begin to shake and my stomach spasmed painfully.

‘Who are the Dreamers that you keep referring to? What sort of power?’ I cried. ‘God! How could I have any sort of power! I can’t even organise my own life!’

I wanted to add the words ‘back on Earth’, but the thought pattern wouldn’t emerge from my lips. Instead there lingered a haunting feeling of a life lived elsewhere. Khartyn stood up and held me firmly by the shoulders, and once more I was submitted to the unearthly intensity of her gaze.

‘Emma, there are some questions you may not ask yet. If you comprehended the power you possessed at this stage, it would be diminished and not be as powerful for the magic that we need to create.’

She remained standing, staring into my eyes. I received an impression of distant lands, as if seen from a great height, of ancient oceans long forgotten, where scaled prehistoric beings screamed and trumpeted to each other, and the aromatic odour of pine and immense trees wafted on the air. A place where giant men and women formed fire from knotted, gnarled arms that resembled trees. The visions were brief, but I was left trembling at the colour and the intensity of the secrets they hinted at.

Khartyn smiled again. ‘You are picking up whispers from my aura. Your sight will improve and grow sharper the longer you remain with us. But for now, my little Bluite, you need to rest. Tomorrow, Goddess willing, we walk with Brighid! Tonight, when I have finished my preparations for Candlemas, I will tell you the story of the Dreamers.’

The three of us were sitting in front of the open fire that Rosedark had built. A cat dozed on my lap. I watched Khartyn and Rosedark warily, my eyes threatening to close. I felt drained and weary, but I was reluctant to leave them alone and lie in the small bedroom at the rear of the house by myself. I knew that Khartyn and Rosedark were sharing a room so that I could have what was normally Rosedark’s room. I had come to the conclusion that I would have preferred to share than to be alone. The time spent lying in bed waiting for sleep to come was the worst. Lonely moments when I lay awake, fearing that my mind had snapped. Or, even worse, that what was happening was genuine, and that these incredible beings did exist.

‘You said that you would tell me about the Dreamers,’ I prodded Khartyn, who was sitting reading the
New Baffin Daily
, her face screwed up in concentration, a bony finger marking the words as she read.

‘Oh yes, Old Mother!’ Rosedark said. ‘She’s such an excellent storyteller,’ she added to me in her odd English accent.

‘It is very late,’ Khartyn said. ‘And poor Emma looks as if she’s about to collapse! Perhaps we should leave the tale for another time.’

‘No, I’d like to hear it,’ I said. ‘It will help me to sleep.’

Khartyn sighed, putting her paper to one side.

‘Well then, you had both better be up early for Candlemas tomorrow!’ she scowled.

‘We will, Old Mother,’ Rosedark promised.

‘You would do anything for a story, wouldn’t you, Rosedark?’ grumped Khartyn, but her eyes sparkled. ‘All right. Once, long, long before recorded time, there was only a bottomless, endless, deep breath of light. In the very centre of this breath was an enormous pillar of ice. Black, glistening ice. Over time, long centuries, or perhaps only one short Turn of the Wheel, the breath became warmer. The breath in fact became so hot that it melted the ice, and from the centre of the ice sprang a great giant.’

‘Amira,’ Rosedark said triumphantly, giving me a superior look as she sat engrossed, her arms wrapped around her knees.

‘Thank you for your interruption. Yes, the giant’s name was Amira, which in the old Eronth tongue means “first breath”. Amira was one of the first gods.

‘From the great belly of Amira sprang his wife, who was named Lepso. Six children also burst from his enormous stomach. Three boys and three girls. The three boys began fighting the instant that they emerged from their father, and they killed him. The enormous giant’s body then became all the known worlds. His blood became all the seas and oceans, his bones became mountains, boulders, rocks and pebbles. His hair became the grass, shrubs and trees and all plant life. His skull formed all the known heavens and clouds were formed from his brain.

‘Lepso then began the business of organising night and day and the seasons. By clapping, and shouting a magical note, she then belched forth all the suns, planets and moons. With her children, Lepso had now created countless worlds. Indeed they had created so many worlds that they had lost track of them all. However, something was missing from their creation — life. They began to realise that there were no other beings. No animals, no fish, no insects. There was only silence, and breath.

‘And so the three sons took a giant tree that they had formed between them. The tree was an ash tree, and the three daughters took an elder tree. The sons called their tree “A”, and the daughters called their tree “E”. They then breathed into their trees, and gave them life and soul, reason and intellect, speech, imagination and senses. These trees became the early ancestors of what we know as the Webx people in the Heztarra Galaxy, a world where very advanced beings originate from.’

‘I have heard different, Old Mother,’ Rosedark said from where she now sat in front of the fire, rubbing a cat’s stomach and listening intently. ‘In Faia, some of the old ones claim that the sons of Amira made both the sexes.’

‘Yes, there are different versions,’ Khartyn nodded. ‘But my version is closest to the Scribe’s account. Now, if I can be permitted to continue?’ She glared at Rosedark, and stared into the fire again.

‘Now, A and E had enormous roots, which in fact clung to each other so that they would never be fully able to let each other go. The rest of their enormous roots grew into all the known worlds that Lepso and her family had created, into all the universes, all the oceans. Right out into space. From these massive roots were seeded goddesses and gods, the Stag Man, the Fates and so forth. However, the sons of Amira were displeased with the roots bearing fruit, which in turn was beginning to materialise its own creations. They wanted to be the only creators!

‘So these sons set out to destroy the roots of A and E. They had mighty axes, and they began chopping at the two trees’ roots, causing some worlds to lose connection with both A and E.’

Here she paused, and her milky eyes passed over me, as she listened to the howling of the wind outside. I waited patiently for her to go on, caught up in her storytelling abilities. She certainly knew how to captivate an audience.

After spending a few moments poking at the fire, she resumed her tale. ‘The daughters of Amira were so enraged at the destructive violence of the sons that they engaged them in a mighty battle. Their argument lasted for an entire Turn of the Wheel while they clashed with each other, and they had many adventures.’

Khartyn noticed my blank look. ‘Turn of the Wheel merely refers to the eight Sabbats in Eronth,’ she said. ‘In all the known worlds, the myths that surround the Sabbats differ, but there are many similarities, as they celebrate agricultural and astonomical events. Here in Eronth we acknowledge Salhmain, Yule, Candlemas, Ostara . . . What else, Rosedark?’ She glared at her apprentice.

‘Belthane, Litha, Lammas and Mabon,’ Rosedark finished.

Khartyn turned her attention back to me. ‘Many Eronthites use the Sabbats as a meditation on the totality of life. The Turn of the Wheel, in other words, reflects your own inner cycle. In your world, the Turn of the Wheel is roughly a year.’ She fell silent a moment.

‘Go on, Old Mother,’ Rosedark urged, forgetting that she had heard the tale a million times before. ‘What happened next?’

‘Well, after spending an entire Turn of the Wheel fighting, the giant siblings were exhausted. But the daughters proved to have more stamina than their brothers, who simply collapsed and died as their hearts gave out. The daughters then cut up their brothers’ bodies in an attempt to destroy the evidence before Lepso should find them and be so enraged at them for killing their brothers that she would swallow them. This, of course, would send them into oblivion.’

‘Imagine that,’ Rosedark said to me, her eyes as wide as they could go. ‘Being swallowed up by your own mother!’

A quick flash of Jade came to me, with her thin, hard, little lips and my legs kicking out from between them. As quickly as it came, the impression vanished like a drop of snow in fire. Jade had no importance in the now.

‘Yes, I can imagine it,’ I said.

‘Do you want to hear the rest of the tale or not?’ Khartyn demanded. We assured her that we did, and she continued. ‘The sisters were so exhausted from fighting with their brothers for an entire Turn of the Wheel that they too collapsed into a deep sleep. From the bones and flesh of their brothers, a Great Shell was created into which they crept and fell asleep. And as the sisters slept they dreamt, and their dreams continued to create everything.

‘Lepso, however, was distraught. She looked everywhere for her children for many Turns of the Wheel, through all the known worlds. Of course, because her children were either dead or sleeping, they refused to answer her plaintive calls.

‘So when it is windy, it is Lepso still calling. When it rains, she is crying tears for her lost children. When there is lightning and thunder, she is furious at them for refusing to answer. For all eternity, the grieving mother can never be still, nor at peace, and the Dreamers, safe and oblivious in the bodies of their brothers, continue to dream.’

Rosedark clapped enthusiastically when she had finished. The wind howled outside, and I shivered. Poor Lepso . . .

‘But it’s just a story,’ I said. ‘You don’t really believe it’s fact, do you? I mean, it’s symbolic, like our old Bible stories, our myths and fables.’

Rain had begun to drizzle on Dome Cottage, and Khartyn leaned forward to poke again at the fire, a smile on her face.