Behind the Ivory Veil
16 Violent Gifts
Monday, 8 August 1955, Edinburgh, Scotland
EVEN WITH THE SHOCK and daring of The Blade, Rebecca considered her first gathering with the full circle on Lughnasad to have been a high point of her life. There were more celebrations, dancing, and even couples slipping into the shadows of the huge stones to make love.
After the circle had dispersed, Rebecca and Mrs. Weed made their way back to the Bed and Breakfast in Keswick. Breakfast Sunday morning was a typical English affair with boiled sausages, beans, soft boiled eggs, and dry toast. Rebecca looked in vain for a salt and pepper shaker.
The trip back to Edinburgh in Mrs. Weed’s old vehicle seemed to take forever, but the two had a lively discussion about Rebecca’s impressions of the ritual that kept her from car sickness most of the way. Mrs. Weed had been careful to fill the car’s tank on Saturday when they got to Keswick because no petrol would be available on Sunday.
“Study the wheel of the year,” Mrs. Weed suggested. “No other place is the combination of male and female so well represented. You will discover that the festivals of the combined circle are based on the solar calendar while the rituals of our smaller circle are based on the lunar cycle.”
Rebecca had been to only two rituals of the minor circle of Braithwaite with Mrs. Weed. There was very little to differentiate them from an evening social gathering of friends. In fact, Rebecca thought of the spontaneous card parties her parents hosted or went to while she was growing up. It seemed no one really planned them. Friends simply dropped in for a cup of coffee and ended up at the table with a fistful of pinochle cards. The kids, if there were any in the company, would settle for playing Crazy Eights or Euchre. Later they graduated to Rummy and Canasta. The adults almost always played pinochle.
The gatherings of the lesser circle of Braithwaite were much the same, but getting to them required a bit more planning. Mrs. Weed attended only the Full Moon celebrations as it was quite a drive to get down to Northern England to ‘drop in’ on the host for the evening.
So, Monday morning, Rebecca was back at work in the library examining various plots of wheels within wheels. It was very difficult to plot on a chart. There were 360 degrees in a circle, but 365 days in a year. She consulted an almanac and discovered thirteen full moons in the year. Yet there were twelve zodiacal signs. And eight pagan holidays. She consulted an ephemeris but even that was only partially helpful. It did, however, show the lunar cycle within the solar cycle.
By the end of six hours in the library, Rebecca’s head hurt. The only thing she had conclusively settled on was that her own monthly cycle was roughly in tune with the full moon. She considered the implication as she pedaled her bicycle back to Mrs. Weed’s cottage. If she bled on the full moon, then by the standards of women everywhere, she should be fertile on the new moon. She filed this information away, knowing that when she was reunited with her husband, new moons were going to be very active times for them.
Rebecca arrived at the cottage exhausted and sweaty from her ride. She could think of nothing better than a relaxing bath when she saw the note from Mrs. Weed on the kitchen table indicating her landlady was having tea with a friend. Rebecca would have a pleasant afternoon.
Fixing herself a cup of tea while the bath ran, she hummed to herself light-heartedly. Wesley would love to visit here. It so suited his eclectic tastes. Turning off the water and placing her tea next to the tub, Rebecca stripped off her clothes as she entered the bedroom. She was removing her panties when she glanced at the bureau.
The dresser had been cleared of its normal knickknacks. Instead, a red sweater lay on the surface. On the sweater lay her walking stick. She fondly remembered cutting it with Doc before she left on her trip and his instructions on how to care for it. But the scene was not a pastoral tableau. Instead, a short knife impaled a note on her staff. Next to her pewter chalice, a red candle burned, trailing wax across the note, staff, and sweater. Rebecca moved cautiously, glancing around her to see if the intruder was still present. The sweater was ruined with red wax embedded in the fibers, but that disturbed Rebecca less than the note.
“Unfinished business, Hart of my heart.”
The stiletto was easily recognized as the same one The Blade had used to feed her cheese just two nights ago.
Panic gripped her as she stood staring at the tableau, unable to move away. She wanted to run, feeling the presence of the sinister soul who had done this—believing he was still there watching her—still in the room, ready to bend her to his will.
Why? Why did he even care about her? It should be obvious that she did not know where the team was digging for their lost goddess. Somewhere in the middle of Greece. She knew only that her letters were addressed to a monk who delivered them. There could be only one thing he wanted from her and it turned her stomach. She voided herself uncontrollably.
How dare he?
Rebecca rebuked herself for her panic, ignoring the vomit and focusing on the staff and note. Panic receded in the face of a shaking rage. She had been violated! This was worse than the attack in Indiana when he had dared caress her and squeeze her breast. He had handled her cup! He had created a sacrificial altar of her staff and sweater. The thought of having him near her filled her with such anger that the room disappeared from her vision. She could see only the violation. She would not live with this. She would burn it all and wish him in the flames.
Even at the thought of fire, Rebecca could see in her mind the wall of light that had surrounded her at her dedication of her cup. Hebe’s words rang in her mind. “The witch’s tools are the knife, the wand, the cup, and pentacles. Each of your tools will come to you from the hand of someone else. Dedicate each to the service of the goddess.”
Her rage, in its turn, dissolved into something more closely resembling madness. Tools received from others. The Flame Keeper from whom she had received her staff and The Blade from whom she had ‘received’ this knife were members of her own coven—the great circle of Carles Castlerigg. She would purify them and make them into her Athamé and wand. Her dawning resolve outweighed Hebe’s admonition against working alone.
Her tools would be the gift of her coven brothers. She hoped they would be pleased when they saw them again. The wand would rule the fire and the Athamé would fan it with wind. At the thought, fire flared in her mind and she turned instinctively to the east to invoke the powers and cast a warded circle. She could not remember precisely the words she had used the last time, but she supposed it really didn’t matter. It was the mind that counted, not the words, and Rebecca’s mind was firmly set. She completed her circuit of the directions seeing a living power in each of the watchtowers and returned once more to the east. The wall of light flared into existence with an intensity that temporarily blinded her. She did not bother, however, to moderate it. She wanted all the protection she could muster.
Now she faced the dresser that would be her altar. She had not and would not touch the items laid out there until her ritual was complete. She was not concerned whether the words that came to her mind were audible, but they rose in pitch as she spun in place gathering power and echoed from the walls of light she had built around herself.
“May you find pleasure in my act, oh most high ones. May you see a tool of good sanctify and purify a tool of evil and turn it to your service. I name this wand Pele! Firerod, flaming beauty, angel of fire, purifier of the unclean. Brigit, goddess of fire, to you be this rod sanctified.”
Rebecca, now fully the witch Sadb, raised her hands to the East and began slowly turning clockwise, gathering into her more power as she commanded the blessings of the powers of all the elements on her wand.
“May this wand be consecrated to your service in the East, oh Arianrhod of the air. May this wand be consecrated to your service in the South, oh Brigit of the fire. May this wand be consecrated in your service in the West, oh Mariamne of the water. May this wand be consecrated to your service in the North, oh Rhiannon of the earth.”
Sadb stumbled a little as she came back to the East and saw the sacrificial tableau again. She could feel a crackling surge of power all around her and faltered beneath the influence of the assault on her senses. She was filled with strength and power that she was not sure she could control. Her eyes focused on the mock sacrifice, the stiletto still protruding from her sanctified wand. Rage overcame her doubt as she glared at the scene.
“How dare you!” she screamed. “I will not be intimidated by you. You will be pure. You will be free!”
Sadb raised a hand to point at the dagger without touching it. She could feel the force gathering behind her for what she intended. She spun, gathering the powers of the elementals together again and felt another surge in her hands.
For a moment, she lost the object of her focus and set herself adrift on the tidal wave that threatened to wash her away. At the same instant, she felt hot and flushed while still fighting off a chilled shiver that tore through her already wavering concentration.
So, this is power, she thought as she drifted once again around the circle with arms outstretched, collecting more strength as she passed each point. This is what Phaethon felt when Helios handed him the reins of the Sun Chariot and told him to drive the horses of dawn. No wonder Zeus struck him down. Such power could destroy the earth. And I am the focus of the cone of power. It lives in me. I can do whatever I will.
The circuit complete, Rebecca forced herself to focus. Her body wanted to keep slowly spinning at the vortex of this awesome cone of power, keep collecting more and more until… Until what? What would happen when she was filled with more power than she could contain. She would burst. Explode. She must finish and return the power to its source.
She focused her eyes on the stiletto and on her wand. She stretched out her hands and began to chant.
“May the fires of Brigit purify you. May Pele rise in the volcanic forge to burn away the dross of your making. May you be lifted ever and only in the service of the goddess. May that hand which wielded you feel and know the force of this power.”
The image of a purifying fire leapt into Sadb’s mind and she knew instinctively what the final portion of this ritual must be. She bound the image in her mind and felt the power begin to flow as she recited the ancient sealing of her spell.
I bind this spell by three times three;
As I do speak, so mot it be.
As she watched, smoke began to rise from the note. The red wax ran. The sweater began to darken and flame. All around the knife, the fire danced from her wand, licking up the blade of the knife.
“I name thee Elhin. Wind master, air spirit, Athamé. May the salt water of Lear and the fires of Pele purify you. Eurus, east wind, bless Elhin and answer his call when I wield him in the East. Notus, south wind, bless Elhin and answer his call when I wield him in the South. Zephyrus, west wind, bless Elhin and answer his call when I wield him in the West. Boreas, north wind, bless Elhin and answer his call when I wield him in the North.”
The four winds whipped a cyclone around her. It fanned the flames rising from her wand. The fire had a life of its own, running the length of the wand and licking up the blade. The red candle melted to a mere puddle, the flames hanging like some overripe fruit about to fall. And fall it did, dripping flames back onto the dresser, burning some invisible fuel on the surface. Then they reached deeper into the finish and into the charring wood.
Sadb realized with a sudden fright that she was no longer in control of the fire. It now burned of its own will. She panicked, looking for some means of beating out the flames. Somewhere there was a voice. Someone was alert already to the fire and would call an emergency. She must act but did not know what to do.
“Ground the power!” The shout seemed to be directly in her ear this time, though she could see no one present. Understanding only the concept but not the process, she staggered back toward the burning dresser. In the middle of the fire, still standing erect from the wand like The Blade’s tumescent prick, glowed her Athamé, Elhin.
She burst into tears at the knowledge of what she must do even before the searing physical pain of the hot knife penetrated the nerves of her hands. She jerked it out of the burning wood and raised it above her head, screaming in agony. Then she drove downward with all her might, burying the knife again, this time into the floorboards. With that act, all her barriers dropped and she released the warding powers that had ensured her privacy.
Mrs. Weed rushed into the room, beating out the last of the flames with a pillow. She cradled Rebecca in her arms as her friend wept.
Monday, 8 August 1955, City of the Gods
“What has you so agitated this morning, Wesley?” Margaret asked as Wesley paced around the rostrum.
The one-week break from their ‘dig’ with the family of Metéora had been good for all of them. It was filled with discussions, a little sightseeing, and fresh food in plenty. But now that they’d returned to the City of the Gods, refreshed and prepared to work, Wesley was acting as if he’d never seen the rostrum before.
They’d come into the City from the fog with the strange voices around them, just as they had every morning the first five weeks they were there. Wesley had marched directly to the central platform and unshouldered his pack. He pulled out string and set it on the rostrum, arranging a drawing in front of him. Then he had started pacing.
He looked at the drawing and then rushed to the opposite side of the rostrum to compare. He looked at each symbol around the edges and then rushed to the center. On his hands and knees, he searched for the dark star that marked the very center of the circle. At Margaret’s words, he crawled across the rostrum with the drawing to face her.
“They’ve moved,” he said flatly. Doc and Pol immediately joined them.
“That’s not likely,” Doc chuckled. “I’m sure we need to simply get you oriented correctly. There are so many symbols on the orchestra that it is easy to become confused. Margaret and I have fought the same disorientation nearly every time we’ve explored.”
“Do you agree that we come into the City with the sun ready to rise at our backs?” Wesley asked. “And that we leave with it in our faces?”
“I think that has been obvious,” Margaret said.
“So, lacking a better term, the direction we arrive from is East and the direction we depart in is West. I’m far beyond determining how it is possible to arrive and leave in different directions and still come out at the same place,” he sighed. “But, the symbols on the rostrum no longer align with the directions as we have known them. I fought uncertainty about this before we left because it seemed things in my drawings were subtly off from one day to the next. I credited it to my poor drawing skills and the change was so slight that I didn’t think twice about it. But coming back after ten days away, I can see how drastically things have changed.”
“How so?”
“The immediate thing that struck me was that Pol and I had made quite a big thing of our discovery that the sun rose in Cancer and set in Capricorn. We charted it the first time that we laid out a piece of string on the rostrum. East to West. But I came straight to the rostrum at sunrise and the symbol on this edge is Leo, not Cancer,” Wesley affirmed. Pol looked and nodded. He didn’t seem particularly perplexed by it.
“Hmm. It doesn’t seem logical that the large and solid stone is somehow rotating,” Doc mused. He shoved on the edge to see if he could make it budge and then got on hands and knees to examine the space around the rostrum. He could detect no gap that would indicate machinery was moving the stone platform.
“We stand on this—work on this. I can’t detect any motion nor any sound that would indicate that it moves. I recall, however, that there was a subtle shift clockwise. Could the pillars have moved?” asked Wesley. The four approached the nearest pillar and consulted drawings to see what direction that pillar had been plotted in earlier. It seemed to be in its correct orientation to the rostrum.
“If the rostrum doesn’t move and the pillars don’t move, then the sun must be moving around the center point,” Wesley said. “The directions are changing.”
“Isn’t that the same kind of logic that early man used to determine that the earth was the center of the universe and the sun went around it?” Margaret asked. “I fall back on our earlier conjecture that we are on a self-contained globe that has its own orbit and rotation.”
“Wasn’t that the one Wesley adamantly claimed was absolutely impossible?” Doc laughed. Wesley blushed. He tossed the ball of string to Pol and held one end on the Leo symbol as Pol circled to lay the string across.
“The symbol?” Wesley asked.
“Aquarius,” was the quick response.
Wesley paced to his left until he reached Scorpio. He held another length of string in this position and Pol circled the rostrum opposite.
“Taurus,” Pol said. With the geometry seeming to be a variable, Wesley crawled across to the center point to see if the star was still there. He sat with a suddenness that caused Doc and Margaret to rush to him.
“Look,” Wesley said. “The star in the center. When we measured east to west the first time we plotted this, the string ran exactly parallel to the arms of the star. North was directly along the vertical axis. Look. The arms are no longer parallel to the east-west axis. They are tilted.” The explorers all sat. Pol joined them and looked at the star in the center. He tilted his head toward the sky as if to contemplate a great mystery.
“The stars in the sky all circle Arcus,” he said. It was a simple statement. Wesley, Doc, and Margaret scrambled back off the rostrum looking at Pol in the center. They moved to the eastern edge where they had laid their packs.
“Is it… Can it truly be that the symbols themselves… move?” Wesley asked. “Are they a living thing?” He reached out and hesitantly touched the symbol in front of him. He felt cold stone. The very thought of what he was saying struggled with what his brain insisted was logically possible. He looked up at Doc and Margaret.
“I believe we must put that in our list of theories,” Doc sighed. “It would be good if you found other relationships among the symbols that have changed. I know there are hundreds of symbols decorating the platform, but surely you have a selection that you can use to see if some symbols have moved in relation to each other rather than simply to the center star. After all, if we are dealing with degrees of the impossible, it might seem just as logical that the star rotates, changing its position relative to the others.”
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