A Touch of Magic
3 The Cauldron Forged
31 August 1974, Minneapolis, MN
“I WON’T DO IT. You know I won’t do it and there is no sense arguing about it. Why do you insist?”
“She’s ready. Goddess! She’s absolutely ripe. She needs her final initiation and the raising of power. She’s eighteen. I was fifteen when I raised power the first time.”
“I was twenty-one. There’s no rush.”
“You promised the circle that you would replace the cauldron and we four joined to complete your circle.”
“The cauldron of rebirth. I am not as ignorant about this as I was when you first scrambled my brain and tried to initiate me. I know what is involved and what is needed. She’ll know when the time is right.”
“You promised the circle.”
“Stop whining. I promised her mother. You were there. You swore the same oath. ‘All between these hands I commit to the Goddess. I, Promethean known as The Unbound, do of my own free will most solemnly swear to protect, help, and defend my sisters and brothers of the Art. I take this vow as Vagabond Priest and as champion of the High Priestess… and her daughter. So mote it be.’ I repeat it to myself daily.”
“I know. I remind myself each morning. ‘We of the Fifth Circle accept the task of training your daughter, protecting her from all ill, and in league with your champion will forge the Cauldron Ops. So mote it be.’ It’s been five years. Can you blame us for becoming impatient?”
“No. But Serepte is something more than any of us or even all of us combined. I feel that we are close, as well, but I can’t rush it right now.”
“We really are a pair, aren’t we?” Judith lifted her lips to touch his and let the kiss deepen as he responded to her. “You know, I do love you,” she whispered. “It isn’t all about power. But lately…”
“What is it, Judith? This isn’t just about Serepte.”
“It is and it isn’t. Maybe I’m spending too much time at the Ren Faire, but I feel something moving in the area. Something dangerous.”
“You can tell by the itch in your thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”
“Don’t laugh. It’s like the veil is thinning and I can see through. We talk about the thin veil and walking between the worlds at Samhain, but this is different—more sinister. A presence is straining to reach us. I think she’s in danger. Serious danger if we don’t move quickly.”
“All of us have felt something,” Wayne sighed. “All we can do is be vigilant and be near when she needs us.”
“It’s full moon tonight. Will you meet us on the roof?”
“I get off work at one. I’ll join you then.”
The four priestesses and their vagabond priest sat on a rooftop in Minneapolis early on Sunday morning. The city was beginning to quiet down, though they could still hear an occasional horn blast or loud muffler on Hennepin Avenue, just a few blocks away. Judith, as always, led the charge.
“You’ve raised power with all the rest of us. Why not with her? Is our sex somehow less sacred?”
“Judith, when you and I first made love it was for love, not power. She should have the same opportunity.”
“That’s not usual for us,” Lissa said. “The first time for the other three of us was for power.”
“I understood that with Pallas and Rhea,” Wayne protested. “And we waited until we were fully comfortable with each other and did it for our enjoyment. I have to say, Chameleon, that the first time with you, I didn’t know that was what we were doing. My head was so muddled by the three of you, and the Bound, that I didn’t understand any of what was going on. And, my darling Badh, even when we raised power with sex, it was a by-product. An afterthought. It was a result of our love. At least it was to me.”
“We’re frustrated,” Meaghan said. “I didn’t realize when I volunteered for this that it was going to take a third of my life. And since she turned eighteen, Serepte has been more distant, not engaging in even our simple rituals like the full moon tonight. She spends her time in her room playing the flute.”
“She takes her music seriously,” Wayne said. He looked at his priestesses and sighed. “I need to share something else with you. I hoped it would just come as a natural part of our circle, but it seems I was wrong.”
“All the more reason to give her more power,” Elizabeth said.
“That’s just it. We can’t. When I visited The Hart this summer, she told me something else—a missing piece of the puzzle. She’s kept it from us until we moved here because she always assumed we would be nearby and she could fill us in at the right time. The time is right to share it with you, my priestesses is now. Serepte is a healer.”
“Only just now?”
“That’s what I asked. On the night we first forged our circle at the Duddo Five Stones, five years ago, Serepte died.”
“What?” The priestesses all pressed toward their priest, wanting to be closer as he revealed what had happened.
“It took the Hart a while to fit the pieces together. Serepte’s godfather was dying of cancer. He’d called her into his room to give her his blessing, but when she saw him, she immediately began playing her flute. He was literally on the brink of death, but her playing revived him. When she had finished playing, she fell into a coma. Her godfather, on the other hand, was completely healed of the cancer. You remember how the Hart suddenly left the morning after our Litha celebration? It was to rush home to be at Serepte’s side in the hospital.”
“And you say she died the night of our first circle? That was two weeks later,” Lissa said.
“Yes. And we all celebrated seeing a vision of Serepte as we raised our cone of power and opened a gate. It was our first act as the Cauldron of Ops to call Serepte back into her body.”
“Goddess!”
“What do you mean as the Cauldron of Ops. We were commissioned to forge a new cauldron.”
“And we did. We confused the two aspects of our mission as being one. We swore to reforge the cauldron, but also…”
“We of the Fifth Circle accept the task of training your daughter, protecting her from all ill, and in league with your champion will forge the Cauldron Ops,” the four priestesses recited their oath.
“We forged the Cauldron Ops when we brought our circle together and first raised the power. And our first act was to protect Serepte and bring her through the circle of rebirth.” Wayne let his words sink into the stunned priestesses.
“And we thought we were to forge her into the cauldron,” Meaghan whispered. “But at every gathering of the Great Circle, we represented the cauldron. Only it wasn’t a representation.”
“I suspect that the cast iron cauldron that I broke that night was actually only the representation. Rebecca gave me some things to read that I’ve been studying ever since I got back. She had access to her mentor’s Book of Shadows and to several others. I compared them with my uncle’s book, from which I learned much of what I knew. It’s veiled, but it appears the fifth tool of the coven has always been people, only represented physically by the iron pot. Our circle is unusual. It is often anchored by the High Priestess and usually comprises three other women and a man. To have the cauldron centered by the Vagabond and surrounded by four priestesses happens only once every two or three hundred years.”
“Is there more or have you finished demolishing everything we believed?” Judith asked sarcastically.
“I’m sorry to say, there’s more. You all know the Hart foreswore her power until that night—the Litha night at which we were commissioned. I know why. Join my hands and let me show you.”
In 1955, the Hart, newly consecrated as a member of Cobhan Carles, journeyed to Greece where she believed her husband was endangered by the Blade. Her intent was to save him, but he was drawn back to the mountain of the legendary City of the Gods. Her husband and a young boy were lost in a flash flood and the already pregnant Rebecca could not stand the thought of them dying.
She held the stone between herself and the tree and held the tip of the tiny dagger to the stone. Ignoring proper warding of her circle, she simply concentrated on seeing the tree through the black void of the stone she called Key. Soon she could see it and poured herself through the stone at the tree. It began to glow and take shape. The shape that emerged was a person in a long robe, human in form but not identifiable as male or female. Rebecca’s stomach knotted up as she took in the shape of the specter—a dark reaper—the jailer—the gatekeeper of a circle without end. It had imprisoned her before—no, not her; her daughter. It threatened to claim Wesley and Pol, sucking them into its darkness.
“No! I forbid them to die. Go you down to their grave instead!” she commanded. With all the force she could manage, she swung her staff out toward the tree. “Burn, damn it!”
Rebecca held steady, all her focus on the robed figure standing in place of the tree. The figure raised a hand toward her staff and the other toward the sky. Twin bolts of lightning hit his hands, one from the sky and one from the tip of Rebecca’s staff. The instant clap of thunder knocked her companions to the ground, even as far away as Doc and Margaret were, but Rebecca held steady, eyes locked on the figure. It wavered and faded. All that was left was the old tree, split in half and blazing in flames.
A voice surrounded them.
“It is finished. Your hubris has sealed the gateway. That which is within is within. That which is without is without.”
Rebecca dropped her staff to the ground and lowered the star stone. All she could see was the burning tree, but the voice continued as if it grew inside her ear, speaking not to her, but to the child growing in her womb.
“You wished for freedom, child, but the price of a rite of passage is to leave a part of yourself behind. It has been done. This gate is forever sealed. But prophecy must yet be fulfilled. You will open the gate when you understand your gift and first exercise it, not in need or obligation, but in love. When the goddess has learned this truth, the captive may be freed.”
Rebecca reeled at the words. She sank to her knees as the vision of Wesley dancing on the rostrum filled her eyes. As the lightning split the tree and sealed the gates, Wesley fell—captive in the City of the Gods.
“Damn you!” Rebecca cried. “Damn your divine trickery! I forswear my powers and lay them to rest. You’ll not use me again. Damn you!”
The shared vision of what Wayne had seen with Rebecca on the night he first entered the Great Circle faded.
“She… sealed her husband behind the veil?” Meaghan gasped.
“Fuck!” Judith spat.
“And now only the goddess can open it,” Elizabeth said softly.
“That’s what this is all about,” Wayne told his beloved companions. “Only when her gift is offered, not in need or obligation, but in love, will she be freed. The circle has always thought we were here to forge a new cauldron, using her as its focus. But ultimately nothing we do can open her power.”
“Then why are we here?” Lissa asked.
“To guide. To protect. To nurture. To defend,” Wayne said. “I don’t think it will be long now. The Swordmaster has sensed a weakening in the fabric. I just don’t know where she is going to find that moment of love.”
“She loves you,” Judith persisted, though with less vehemence as the weight of the prophesy bore down on her.
“Like a father. Or perhaps, since there is only eight years’ difference in our ages, like a trusted big brother. We’ve taught her the craft and lore. I’ve made her tools. Even when she lived at home, we were there as a point of stability for her,” Wayne said. “We counterbalanced her mother—and let’s face it, it took all of us to balance the Hart at times. We took her to the Great Circle once each year, but we protected her from those who would drive her too fast. And now we are here to be her support when she discovers her power.”
“Why? Why didn’t we know all this to start?” Lissa demanded. “It would have been so much easier.”
“It would have been easier if you and the Swordmaster and the Hart, and the Bound all let me keep a clear head and give me instructions I could follow five years ago,” Wayne said hotly. “I could have just given you the damned knife and avoided all the crap going on in my head.”
“But then we wouldn’t have seen Hyperion charge into our circle in flames to slay the demon,” Meaghan tittered. She still held that image as the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. They all laughed.
“Why, Chameleon? Eris, you of all people should know why. You did it that way and why I’ve done it that way,” Wayne said. He stared Lissa down until she dropped her eyes and started to laugh.
“Chaos and deception,” Lissa said. “To deceive her enemies both within and without the circle. I think I might hate you for pulling my own tricks on me.” She glanced around the circle and laughed at each of their smiling faces. “I’d still want to fuck you, though.”
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