Dark Arts (29 page)

Maxwell had an idea that the Opening Door
referred to the last breaking of the covenant, when another person
would discover the secret of resurrection, then return to life
themselves. The covenant between mankind and the divine, to keep
the door between the mystical power and material laws closed, would
be broken if the resurrected did not surrender the gift, allowing
themselves to die, restoring the natural order. He hadn’t seen
anything talking about specific predictions or prophecies though,
he didn’t enjoy prophecy at all.

The Calling of Light was completely new to
him as an event, but he knew the Prometheus Manuscript well. He
spent years fascinated with it and the implied attachment to the
Sun Prince, who was able to access magic that seemed more fantasy
than occult.

“I ask you, Maxwell Percival Foster, do you
swear to serve the Third Spiral, keeping its secrets and aiding our
cause for the rest of your days and into the next existence?” asked
Gladys.

“I do swear,” Maxwell replied.

The blindfold was removed and Maxwell was
struck by a rush of memories. This was not the sensation of
remembering something he’d forgotten, but of experiences that were
blocked from his mind coming to him in sequence.

The last year he spent with Miranda before
she left for Italy was as clear as though it just happened.
Handholding, spending hours playing music together. Finally, their
first kiss, a perfect moment somewhere between the main house and
the barn just after sundown. Recalling the cool air of twilight,
his excitement and Maxwell’s overwhelming love for her made his
head spin. His father almost caught them in the act, coming around
the bend as their encounter was ending and grins that would last
hours split the bottom halves of their faces.

The seal between him and those memories were
broken. His father put them there, and he understood at last. The
weaver in him was a musician. That is how he understood the power
between the incantations, the summoning of a being, and how those
things affected the world. Seeing the power as though it was made
of notes and understanding that there were harmonies to every
ritual, spell, curse and especially between what one brings from
the world beyond the physical was a revelation to Maxwell.

If he and Miranda were allowed to continue a
romance they were too young for, he would not have built a
foundation for magic in music, and she would have been stunted as
well. Would they have been more powerful together? That was a
question they could answer by being together. His father truly was
working in his best interest, giving him the knowledge to exist as
a Magus, while his music provided the art he’d need to wield the
power he would eventually have.

Maxwell recalled discovering the opening to
a cave blocked off by concrete and a steel door three times since
then. Hidden in the forest, it was only a few hundred yards from
the private beach. The last time he was taken there was at the
beginning of his initiation ritual. After they blindfolded him,
they guided him down the beach, then down a path in the forest, a
path he was only just recalling. The way to the place he was seeing
took him underground, then into the open night air. His memory of
the journey to the present finally complete, Maxwell looked around
himself to find the smiling faces of Samuel, Allen, Bernie, Scott,
Gladys, Susan, and Miranda spaced around a circle etched on a stone
floor. In the outer circle there were at least thirty people, most
of whom he recognized as visitors who came to the farm from time to
time as he was growing up.

Etched in the stone floor were circles of
different sizes, all meant for different high rituals. In the dim
light he could see that the black stone that was so common in the
area was shaped into a henge that surrounded everyone inside the
inner and outer circles. The space was closed in by flat stone
faces in all directions past the henge, even in the starlight it
looked like someone had cut a large recessed circle for all other
circles to be placed in.

The space outside the circle had been
decorated with wildflowers, cedar and oak leaves. There was
movement on them, small things, some with their own inner light,
using the decorations like rafts. Some were still, other small
shadow and light bearing creatures moved from bloom to leaf,
occasionally skipping through the air.

They all remained outside the two main
circles, like an audience of faeries who didn’t require protection
or involvement. “Mother Maddock’s Little Visitors,” Maxwell said,
naming the book he’d read and laughed at as a teenager. She claimed
to have faeries in her garden, wrote about them and painted several
who ‘would sit still long enough’ as she said.

“You’re not the first to be surprised that
she wasn’t mad,” Samuel said, amused. The Third Spiral is one of
the few groups that are blessed with their protection, and our
initiates are all able to open their minds enough to see a part of
many different realms beyond our own. Some can only see the parts
that are close to crossing into our reality, or overlap entirely,
others, like you, Miranda and Bernie, will be able to see into
other realms. Which ones, how far and when that gift will be under
your control are questions that time will answer.”

“We should get on with it?” Gladys reminded
Samuel quietly.

“Yes,” Samuel agreed. “Maxwell has stirred a
spirit from the darkness. This being has embraced hate, and will
only grow more powerful in its need to harm the living. You have
the cunning, the knowledge and the power to face this spirit, and
we want to know how you use those things without direction. Take
what you need from your belongings and proceed.” Samuel said.

Everyone inside the inner circle retreated
to the ring of observers in the outer circle, leaving Maxwell alone
with a short altar and the possessions he brought with him at his
feet.

He knelt down, put his amulet on, took the
wood he collected, a rough spun piece of twine, and moved on to the
altar. In addition to what he knew he would find there, the athame,
dishes of oil, water, salt, and other ceremonial instruments, he
found a small brazier of coals with three branding irons inside. He
looked to Allen, who was the only person he knew who had similar
brands, and recognized that the older man was trying to passively
observe.

Maxwell looked at the brands. One was a
powerful protector against possession and curses, another was a
symbol of channeling meant to increase the potency of the bearer’s
will. The third was the mark of the conjurer, made for
practitioners who summoned beings to perform tasks for them. He
picked up a damp cloth from beside the brazier and considered which
ones may help him. Maxwell knew he could do without all of the
brands, but intended to have at least two of them tattooed later
anyway. Using the brands set out for him and whoever else was going
to use them in a sacred space, in that time would be much more
potent.

He chose the Silent Spirit circle, a match
to Miranda’s Tattoo that protected against curses and spiritual
possession and pressed it to his chest. Even though the lines of
the glowing red-hot brand were fine and delicate, it was still
incredibly painful at first, dulling after the first few seconds.
The smell and sound of searing made it much worse. He removed it
when Allen nodded at him.

He put the iron back into the coals and
couldn’t help but smirk at Miranda, who was wide eyed and cringing
as he picked up the more complex second brand: The Invoker’s Seal,
meant to assist him in projecting his will. With a wink in her
direction he pressed the red-hot end beside the first brand. The
pain wasn’t as bad as the first time, but his body reacted to the
abuse by sweating profusely. By the time he put the second brand
back in the brazier drops ran down the middle of his back. He did
not need the third brand at all, and no one seemed surprised when
he turned his back on it.

Marking one of the man-sized circles carved
onto the stone at his feet with a bit of bark, Maxwell took a step
back so the altar was behind him. There was no need for him to
summon his opponent using words or announcements. Instead he closed
his eyes and imagined the defiled chapel in his mind as it appeared
in his dream, with wooden walls that were the color of yellowing
bone, and a pastor in its doorway that seemed to be at one with his
shadow.

Imagining the False Pastor inside the circle
was easy, the mental picture formed as though the being was eager
to appear. Maxwell raised his hand, fingers splayed out across the
star scape above and focused, shutting the world around him out.
Faces of rotting children filled his mind, they clung to the black
woolen robes of the False Pastor, and Maxwell recognized them for
what they were: an extension of the Pastor’s will, tools he used to
frighten people who he had latched on to over the years. They only
ever existed in the phantasm’s imagination. With a thought, Maxwell
was able to see past them in his mind’s eye, and look directly into
the eyes of the Pastor, grey and cold as they were. He lowered his
hand and directed it at the circle he’d marked.

When Maxwell opened his eyes to look upon
the False Pastor, he was already sure he would see him there. A few
of the onlookers gasped at the appearance of a grey man surrounded
by a black shadow-mist. “A wordless summoning,” someone
whispered.

“I bind you with tools you know,” Maxwell
said, presenting a thick sliver of oak he gathered from a
crossroads tree near the fallen chapel. The Fallen Pastor sneered
and loomed, trying to press past the barrier drawn on the stone.
With great care, Maxwell looped the tiny noose he’d made of twine
around the piece of wood and looked up at his opponent,
smiling.

The face of the Pastor stretched long, it’s
pale visage staring on in shock and horror as Maxwell pulled the
tiny noose tight. A rough rope closed around the neck of the False
Pastor and hauled him up abruptly. The spirit clawed at the rope
and Maxwell could feel all the frustration he had at being rendered
powerless by the creature well up in him. It was not the time to
follow that emotion. “You are bound,” he growled before taking a
deep breath in and letting his anger out with a long exhale.

Slowly he knelt and put the piece of wood,
along with the noose tied around it on the stone at his feet and
left it there as he stood again. The choking and struggling sounds
filled the space, and the False Pastor kicked, clawed at the rope
and made desperate gestures to the observers. “No one here pities
who you are,” Maxwell said. “They pity the child you once were, as
we were all innocent once, beings of potential and light.”

The False Pastor fixed his eyes on Maxwell
and fought the rope furiously, no longer flailing, but straining,
his hands reaching as far as they may, striking the edge of the
circle boundary carved around him. “You are damned, Weaver!” he
screamed hoarsely.

“I’m starting to reconsider that pity,
spirit,” Maxwell said, cocking his head. He took the blade his
forefather made, unsheathed it and faced the False Pastor. “I am
your deliverer. Look up, lost one, and find your path.”

“Demons, the dark flame, the road of pain,”
the False Pastor said as he looked to the stars.

“They have come in response to what you
are.” Maxwell held the knife over his head and closed his eyes. “I
call into the light, the Glade everlasting, I ask if there is any
who would protect this spirit.”

Maxwell could feel the fear from the bound
spirit in the circle. Even if the False Pastor was completely evil,
there was still something within him that feared his fate. There
was no sign that relief was coming, and Maxwell waited as long as
he felt he could, then longer. This was the true test, the act of
it was easy, and he had done everything correctly and was in a
place of great power. He hated the False Pastor enough to send him
directly to the Pit, but doing so in a sacred space when there may
be another option would make him seem vengeful and severe to
everyone who was gathered there.

The words of his father came to him then, a
recollection from his encounter at the crossroads; “Do what feels
right, watch your back,” and Maxwell knew exactly what to do. “No
one’s coming to save you, Pastor,” he told the spirit. Without a
moment’s hesitation, he lightly kicked the piece of wood with the
twine noose wrapped round it into the False Pastor’s circle, then
stepped inside with the spirit.

He felt his heart skip a beat as the False
Pastor tried to possess him and failed, then the tug on his amulet
as he attempted to dig his hands into his chest. Maxwell raised the
knife. “I release you to the realms beyond our material plane,” he
reached out, expecting to feel nothing but air, but grabbed the
cold, fleshy throat of the Pastor instead. He squeezed and looked
into the cold eyes of the shocked being. “I banish you for all
time, and release you to wander.” With a flick of his blade, the
noose that held the False Pastor aloft was cut.

The dark spirit screamed, the pitch was
ear-piercing as he drifted up and out of sight. Maxwell could feel
that it was utterly gone, even the memory of standing inside the
circle with the thing was already something he found easy to
doubt.

Susan, Samuel and Gladys returned to the
inner circle, smiling. “You chose the method that does the most
good. The spirit will never be able to return unless it is brought
into this world by the living. If it is summoned you will know
where it appears, and who is responsible.” Susan said. “You have
demonstrated the skills of a Weaver.”

“You have demonstrated the skills of a
Guardian,” Gladys said.

“You have demonstrated the skills of a
Summoner,” Samuel said. “Welcome to the Third Spiral.”