Circle of Nine: Circle of Nine Trilogy 1 (34 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY

He must not be too quick to subject a witch to examination, but may pay attention to certain signs which will follow, and he must not be too quick for this reason: unless God, through a holy Angel, compels the devil to withhold his help from the witch, she will be so insensible to the pains of torture that she will sooner be torn limb from limb than confess any of the truth.

— Kramer and Sprenger, the
Malleus Maleficarum

T
he Lightcaster frowned and shifted in the saddle of his restless ilkama. He did not like to be kept waiting, even by an Azephim Queen, a Bindisore Queen, whatever she was. Time was precious, there so much work to be done. The Blue Planet was calling for him, there were numerous opportunities for him to cast his light, which he could attend this week.

He had been seated in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome enjoying the tourists photographing the Pieta and gaping at paintings of long-dead suffering Jesus when the Solumbi had presented himself. At first he was irritable; was there no place sacred to these overfed teddy bears? Then he grew angry at the audacity of the Bindisore Queen to send him a summons. Didn’t she know how busy Lightcasters were? Why hadn’t she paid him the courtesy of a personal visit? Really, these Azephim angels were insufferably boorish! Did they not realise who they were dealing with? He was the Lightcaster, he was not some factotum for the Azephim to order at will!

Finally, of course, curiosity had stepped in as to the nature of her urgent summons and so he found himself in one of his least favourite worlds in the universes — Eronth.

Goddess-worshipping, matriarchal, wretched Eronth. Here he could not enjoy the fine hospitality that he enjoyed in other worlds. Indeed, he had to work in anonymity in this world, and was mainly shunned by the locals for his beliefs. Consequently his powers were lesser when he entered Eronth, for Lightcasters only grew from the hatred and dark energies they could arouse in others.

The Azephim Angels, he admitted ruefully, were probably the only things that saved the backwater that Eronth was from being some awful utopia of light and love. He snarled briefly to himself, a dark flush creeping over his scaly skin.

In the name of Alecom, witches were accepted and respected here! It was intolerable.

How old was he? He had long forgotten. As far back as he could remember, he had been, and yet had never fully been. Countless centuries of witnessing pain and torture and injustice. Endless nights of feeding voraciously on the pain of others. Years filled with glorious light; white, blinding. Light cast by his own hand, every time he expelled evil from the people and places in which it had taken root. They were lonely years. But — and may the darkness remain behind him — at least they had passed quickly.

The Lightcaster also went by the name of the Pricker after his favoured torture instrument, a long brass pin that he liked to carry on his person at all times. He was a short man, although he appeared taller thanks to his stovepipe black hat. He wore soft leather boots, embroidered with tiny gold stars on the flaps, beige trousers and a flowing black cape. He was a fashion plate, or he liked to consider himself so, and throughout all the different periods of history that he had lived in he liked to mimic the fashions.

His fingernails were manicured and highly polished, filed to little sharp points. His eyes were black with madness. His powdered white wig was worn long and drawn back in a queue. His soul matched his eyes. Despite his passion for current fashions, he was of all times and no times. He was handsome despite the slight covering of scales on his face and hands. He prided himself on being a scholar who enjoyed music, history, fine arts and killing. Especially killing. Especially witches.

The Pricker liked to brag to anyone drunk enough or fool enough to listen. He was preparing a screenplay on himself, and believed his contacts in Hollywood would put the money up for a movie on his life. He bragged that he was responsible for the deaths of 300 000 witches alone in the glory days of the old witch hunts and that he had been a muse for at least two witch-hunter bibles, the
Malleus Maleficarum
in the 1480s and the
Tractatus de Heretics et Sortilegiis.

Over the centuries he had whispered into the willing ears of judges, popes, lawyers and children. He had watched silently from the corners of many different rooms and dungeons in many different times, his coal-black eyes shining with pleasure as limbs were pulled off on the rack, his Iron Maiden embraced with lethal arms, iron cages drove spikes through tongues, and legs were pounded with hammers till marrow flew from their bones. Then his favourite moment, the moment of sexual ecstasy for him, the confession came.

Whether the confession was true or not was of no importance to the Pricker; he cared little whether the victim was an actual witch. More often than not it was blatantly obvious that the tortured soul was not a witch at all. Most simply lacked the sensitivity and intelligence to be a witch. No, the challenge was to get the confession and to get the torturers riled up enough to devise increasingly cruel ways to extract it.

The Pricker lived off the blood lust of mobs and sadistic individuals. The hot, exquisite pain that flowed into him when their chosen victims slowly died — this energy kept him alive, and he had flourished through the centuries. Although he had helped devise many torture instruments, there was no doubt that fire remained his favoured cleansing element; he had even devised ways to prevent the witch from being burned too quickly. In recent times, he had been delighted by a mass burning of more than 400 people in Africa.

The Pricker travelled freely throughout all the known worlds, but he was exiled in many due to his sadistic tendencies and his skills in infecting others of weaker minds with his evils. But the Blue Planet was wide open to his influence. It was war-like and bloodthirsty and by far his favoured habitat. Patriarchal religions ruled, misogynism was rife, tolerance was virtually zero . . . yes, the Blue Planet was a continual source of work for the Pricker and showed little sign of changing.

The Lightcaster sighed deeply, bored, watching a tiny black dot in the sky become larger and more distinct. The dot became an eagle, the eagle rushed toward him in a mass of feathers and claws, shape-shifting as it came. He stepped back as it landed in front of him. It was Sati.

Wings outstretched, the Bindisore regarded him coldly as he bowed low before her, sweeping his hat to the ground. The Pricker prided himself on his excellent manners, especially in front of the weaker sex. Her eagle form still throbbing her veins, Sati had to resist the urge to attack the Pricker who reeked of the smell of Bluites. Lightcasters were a source of irritation and scorn to her. She disliked the cowardly way they preferred to watch as sterner souls did the torture and killing for them.

‘I have a witch for you to hunt,’ she informed him coldly, wasting no time on pleasantries.

The Pricker’s nostrils flared excitedly at the mention of the word ‘witch’.

‘It will not be easy. She is a canny old bitch, well schooled in all manner of trickery.’ Sati was loath to confess that Khartyn had eluded her capture. She noted with approval the hate that had begun to ooze from the Pricker’s pores at the thought of a canny witch, let alone an old witch. Even old ugly women deserved to die as far as the Pricker was concerned.

‘What reward are you offering?’ the Pricker asked, reluctant to commit himself to a deal with the notoriously untrustworthy Azephim. Sati hesitated, knowing that monetary rewards if offered would mean nothing to the Pricker. She wasn’t dealing with a silly Faery who loved treasure or anything that glistened whether they had need of it or not.

‘You shall be given access to the Azephim dungeons in the Wastelands. We have devised many new tortures you may be interested in developing.’

The Pricker’s coal-black eyes glistened, but only for a second.

‘And?’ he asked greedily, sensing there was more.

‘If you hunt and find and kill the witch and bring me her heart, I shall give to you her Book of Shadows. I have her Book in my possession and it is filled with many witch’s secrets and spells that you will no doubt find of interest.’

The Pricker’s nostrils flared again.

‘There is no witch I cannot hunt or kill!’ he boasted. ‘What is the old one’s name?’

Contemptuously, Sati moved closer to him, her chest rising and falling. Her mint-scented breath was on him and she kissed him slowly, her saliva mixing with his. As her tongue moved in his mouth he sensed her desire to dominate, to use her sexuality to control him. However, she was wasting her time. The Lighcaster’s libido was only aroused by the cries of his victims when body and spirit were broken. Her hands moved over his buttocks, roughly kneading them. No response. She pulled back, looking at him with eyes of hate.

‘You may be capable of persecuting a bunch of feeble-minded midwives and bored housewives on the Blue Planet, but this witch has true powers and may easily elude capture.’

‘No witch ever has!’

The Pricker began to recite a list of well-known witches he had watched die in agony, but Sati silenced him with a warning growl.

‘Her name be Khartyn.’

The Pricker started, the name being known to him, then he burst into peals of manic laughter.

‘Khartyn the Crone!’ he wheezed. ‘It will bring me great pleasure to hunt the old witch and bring her blackened, smoking witch’s heart to you!’

He bowed low again. Sati watched him through slitted eyes, already beginning to shape-shift. Half-Azephim, half-eagle, she spoke to him.

‘Then go quickly! May Alecom himself guard you with the powers of the night!’

Before the Pricker had raised himself from his bow she had launched herself into the sky in a tangle of feathers, hair and bone. He watched her depart with a smile on his face, his fingers automatically caressing his Pricker, uncaring of the blood that dropped from his finger.

‘Well, well,’ he murmured. ‘Khartyn is the prey. Life is getting interesting.’

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

I
stared at Persephone, shocked at how much more I was beginning to see. Be careful, my inner voice warned, for the more I saw in the underground, the less I would be able to see in the overground. Tonight the Goddess wore a hint of a lavender shawl, and her hair hung loose to her waist with a gold snake ornament twisting through the curling tendrils. Her large dark eyes carried both strength and fragility. The now-familiar odour of cedarwood and sandalwood and orange clung to the air.

‘I have brought you food,’ she said softly.

I could smell a mouth-watering concoction of savoury vegetable stew wafting from the covered stone pot that she carried. She set it in front of me and I marvelled at the hair that covered her slim arms, that I could now perceive fine details.

Blind, I was going blind. I mourned for the senses I was losing, ignoring Persephone’s impatient gesture for me to ear.

‘Persephone, if you keep me here, I am going to die. You know that. No Faiaite and especially no Bluite could survive in these conditions for long. Please, I beg you! I need to rise! You need to rise! You are breaking a sacred contract!’

‘What contract?’ Persephone retorted harshly. ‘All I did was stop to admire a flower! I had no bargaining power for any contract!’ She paused, and I could hear her soft breathing. Then an outburst. ‘Everything that happens is always organised around me, there’s no consultation with me! Look at Hades with his stupid plans for Salhmain with Ishran and Sati! They think they’ve kept me in the dark! Literally! Kept me in the dark! Hades is even fool enough to flatter himself that I don’t know about his lust for Sati! But in the dark I hear everything, smell everything, see everything! I hate it, Emma! I long for the light of the sun yet when I do risk the overground the light is too bright!’

She stopped, her voice breaking. Goddesses do not break down. Even young and frail ones. Instinctively I moved forward to comfort her but was halted by her warning hand.

‘Don’t touch me, Emma! You lecture to me, as if I have any control in these matters. Don’t you understand? Everything has been mapped out for me, as it has been for you! I rise, I descend, I rise, I descend.’ She rose, as if to go, and I moved toward her. Somehow I had to reach her. But how? She frightened me with her swift changes of mood; she could transmute from being a spoilt child to an imperious Queen of the underground with the flutter of an eyelash.

Her breathing was ragged, and I could hear the pounding of her heart. She spoke from the soil, from the bowels of the earth. ‘I have little peace in my mind and heart, always to be pulled in two different directions. Never fully belonging to either. In the underground, you can go mad so quickly.’ She turned to face me, and if I had put out an arm I would have touched her.

I had no idea how I could comfort her. I stared into the half-light, feeling my own inadequacies. The thought came to me that she might have already gone mad.

‘Well, can’t you at least identify with what I’m going through?’ I said. ‘I didn’t ask to be down here! You know that I’m not going to survive if you keep me here. I don’t know, bloody hell!’ Frustration swept over me. ‘Couldn’t you at least consider that you are being a little bit selfish keeping me imprisoned? Okay, I know that you feel trapped, but where I come from, most of us are trapped. We’re trapped in jobs that are hell, or with families and relationships that tear at us, or trapped by our own thought patterns! I mean, on Eronth there’s a young girl called Rosedark, who is apprenticed to a Crone called Khartyn, and she’s trapped! She probably didn’t ask to have the burning shell in her forehead! Now she has to serve the Crone, and never have a man, or children, or . . .’

I trailed off, close to hysteria. I had named all the things that I would never have, as well, because I was going to die in this tomb. A living doll to a goddess with such scant regard for human life.

More breathing. Water dripped down the walls.

‘What would you, a Bindisore Crossa, know of thought patterns or being trapped?’ the young, soft voice continued. ‘It is thanks to you and your kind that I am trapped in the underground. Your myths, your songs, your poetry and your art imprison me here!’

‘But at least you still have some free will,’ I pointed out, trying desperately not to break down. ‘You are keeping me imprisoned here.’

The flapping of the wings of an owl filled the underground chamber where we argued. I could feel Persephone’s large eyes upon me.

There was laughter from the dark; an unfamiliar, and somehow terrible sound.

‘Perhaps we make our own cages,’ she said. I could feel her looking up, detecting worlds that I was oblivious to, smelling scents beyond the reach of my senses.

‘I can feel the Phooka stirring,’ she said in a whisper. ‘He is not the creature known by that name on your Earth, he is not the harmless shape-shifter you may know of. Here, the Phooka is the shadow side of Eronthites. He lives in the underground where he sleeps most of his time away. But every Salhmain he is permitted to rise and walk the land. Unlike his namesake on your world, he is not a gentle creature. Eronth’s Phooka kills everything that he comes across.’

She moved toward me, a gust of cold air. Pain gripped my temples.

‘It is time, Emma,’ she said sadly. ‘I have been ignoring the signs for so long, but if the Phooka is rousing himself, then the light is calling me. Tonight I lay back with Hades thrusting inside me, and I knew what I had to do. I have to return to the Overworld. Ishran and Sati have concocted their own little Salhmain ritual; the fools are going to attempt to raise the Phooka. If they succeed in their rite, Faia, indeed all of Eronth, will be in danger from the Phooka’s wrath. The goddesses will need me. Besides, Sati wants you dead after you have delivered the Chosen One. I cannot risk that you will remain here and survive, and I can no longer nurture death below the earth. You need to go to the Crone. I cannot protect you in the underground. The Crone will give you more explanation than I have time to give. For now, give to me the apple seeds that the Stag Man gave to you. I need to take them.’

‘You know about the seeds?’ I asked, stunned.

I saw Persephone’s white teeth as she smiled in the dim light.

‘Of course!’ she said. ‘They are the Stag Man’s gift to me!’ Then, almost as if in reproach, she added, ‘Do you not remember that I am a goddess?’

Reluctantly, fearing a trap, I retrieved the seeds from the handkerchief in my pocket.

‘A gift to you? I thought the seeds were a gift to me, to trick you into wanting to leave the underground.’

‘No — the seeds are to aid me with the pain of having to leave my beloved.’

The voice that came from the Goddess was insubstantial, light as air and yet it managed to impregnate itself into the soil where it grew, rapidly signalling the announcement to all elementals and forms of life that Persephone herself was about to rise!

I realised as I gazed at the indistinct form of the Goddess how complex her relationship with Hades was, and I longed for a love that was as profound. Surely one third of the year was preferable to no time at all with her beloved?

‘No,’ replied the Goddess, reading my thoughts. ‘It gets harder every season. Before I take the seeds allow me to prepare myself and say goodbye.’

She buried her face in her delicate hands and I watched in awe as a faint gold light grew around her. The underground became silent, holding its breath in sorrow as it sensed the imminent departure of its Queen. Invisible elementals softly whispered their goodbyes.

‘Quickly!’ Persephone urged. ‘There isn’t much time before he senses the change in energy! Give me the seeds before I change my mind!’

I passed the seeds to her hurriedly, accidentally brushing her hand as I did so. A swift charge of electricity shot through me, causing me to jump.

‘Careful! You have touched the Goddess! Now stand still while I prepare you for the ascent!’

I felt my eyes close involuntarily. There was a tugging at my mind. An odour of myrrh hung in the air. I felt Persephone swallow the apple seeds and then she embraced me tightly. To my relief, there was no electrical charge, only a faint buzzing sensation.

‘Demeter!’ The cry ricocheted through my being. I felt the earth swallow, begin to cry, the sky vacuuming it into its being. We began to rise into the air through the soil, holding each other closely. Soil in my mouth, in my eyes. Hades bellowed in anger and agony, calling to his love, but his cries grew ever more faint as we rose from the bowels of the earth, in a slow dance of freedom. An immense golden owl called to us, encouraging the ascent. Shadows slipped and fell. The Dreamers stirred and cried in their sleep. Roses fell through crumbling earth. I knew all worlds could feel this transition. I heard galaxies of angelic beings burst into song, chanting prayers.

I felt a scream rise within me.
I am going to die under here
, I thought in terror, suffocated by soil. I could no longer feel Persephone holding me. We had become one, as we were birthed and rebirthed by soil. It was a birth, it was a death. We were the burgeoning seeds and in all the known worlds as we rose the plant kingdom prepared to flower and flourish. We began to spiral through the earth, faster, faster. I felt a faint humming coming from the earth’s womb as it expelled us. Finally, when I thought my lungs would collapse with the weight of the soil, our heads penetrated through the ground. The earth shot us from her body as if relieved to be free of our presence within her. I lay spluttering and coughing on the ground, grimy and exhausted and feeling as if I had travelled from a heaven to an earth. Persephone, by contrast, was energised and immaculate. I received a fleeting impression of a very young maiden with corn-coloured hair, an oval-shaped face, full lips, dark eyes. A memory to carry with me throughout time. Was it pain that I saw in her goddess eyes? I was never fully sure.

Then she was gone. Moving into air with the air. In front of me, a sight that raised the hair on my arms and sent shivers through my body. Demeter was waiting about six feet away, arms outstretched to receive her child. Gone was the heavily cloaked, grieving Demeter of the Circle of Power ritual. I could hardly reconcile that broken-hearted figure with the severely beautiful goddess before me with hair like ripened corn. Her face was alight with joy and radiance as she hugged her daughter to her. As they embraced, they merged so they appeared to be the one.

As I lay on the ground, awestruck, engrossed in their reunion, I became aware of a soft chanting. The chanting began to increase in intensity. Slowly materialising around the goddesses were a crowd of what looked to be over one hundred women, clothed in white gowns. They wore gold masks which covered their entire faces and around their bodies glowed a phosphorescent light. Each masked figure carried a severed pig’s head.

I lay, half-terrified and half in ecstasy, as the chanting women surrounded and swallowed the two goddesses. There came a sound of huge wings flapping, the earth moved quickly and the chanting rose in intensity. Tears fell from my eyes at the beauty of the chant. As quickly as they had appeared, they were gone. The mass of masked women, the pigs’ heads and the goddess mother and daughter, all were gone.

I lay back on the earth’s surface, weeping as waves of nausea began to ripple through my body, and I vomited. I lay, emptying my stomach onto the soil, then gratefully slipped into unconsciousness.

*

A cold pressure was on my head, and the enchanting fragrance of neroli and rose wafted soothingly over me.

‘How are you feeling, Emma?’ A familiar voice accompanied the fragrance. I winced as the much longed-for light invaded my eyes. Then I smiled as I recognised the familiar faces of Khartyn and Rosedark bending over me. Awareness returned and I groggily recognised the cosy interior of the cottage.

‘H-h-how did I get here?’ I stammered, attempting to sit up.

Khartyn pushed me back onto the bed. ‘Lie and rest. How do you think you got here, you Bindisore fool? We’ve been expecting you in the Overworld. I’ve been in constant communion with my scrying mirror. As soon as I saw the vision of you and Persephone bursting from the womb of the mother earth, Rosedark and I hightailed it like mad to greet you.

‘It is good to see you, child.’

She looked at me with genuine, undisguised warmth, and then glanced mischievously at Rosedark. They both started to giggle like schoolgirls.

‘Blessed Be!’ exclaimed the Crone, as she began to apply fragrant aromatic compresses to my aching eyes and temples. ‘My old eyes have seen a lot of sacred mysteries over the centuries, but never have they seen a Bindisore-Crossa pop through the earth like an erupting pimple!’

I grinned weakly, attempting to recapture the moment when Persephone had embraced me as we rose through the soil together. Frustratingly, all I could remember at that point was myself rising and twisting through the dark earth. There was a faint elusive memory of the smell of Persephone as we rose, and women with masks, but no matter how hard I tried to recall them, the memories danced tantalisingly away.

‘Take heed, for you that have witnessed the sacred rites are forever cursed with the knowledge of the awake among the dead,’ Khartyn quoted softly. ‘The Dreamers in their grace will not leave you in peace with the memories of the sacred mysteries. Now rest, Emma. Faia is celebrating and feasting the return of Persephone, but Ishran and Sati are scheming as we speak. We need you fully alert to aid us against their plan for Salhmain. Now rest.’

As she spoke her fingers pressed pressure points behind my ear.

*

‘There!’

Khartyn spoke with satisfaction, watching Hypnos descend swiftly upon Emma.

‘The Dreamers will look after our Crossa now and give her instructions for when her viper sister strikes again.’

Handing the bowl of scented water to Rosedark to dispose of, she added, ‘And strike the viper will. I sense her plotting to draw upon the energy of Salhmain for her own selfish ends.’

The Crone looked down on the sleeping face of Emma where she lay. Respect and affection softened the deep crevices in her face. How many lifetimes had she shared with the Crossa? The two of them had sprung from the Dreamers’ Shell more times than she could remember. Never had she known of a Crossa, let alone a Bluite, who had descended and survived the underground.