Bride of the Stone: Circle of Nine Trilogy 2

by Josephine Pennicott

  ‘When that immense wall of water hit us, there was no way we could survive the impact. It broke over us, and all was chaos, pain, blackness. I was in a whirlpool of water, turning over and over, whilst around me Old Baffin was sucked up. I was conscious of Merpeople laughing with glee in the enormous tidal wave, greedily dragging warm Baffinite bodies into their watery homes.

  ‘But Hecate spared me that day. When I regained consciousness, it was to find myself miles along the beach, while everything I had always known was now gone. In the first days after the city drowned, I often used to ask myself why. I was one of the few survivors, yet so many finer and more talented people than me had drowned. Perhaps the sea had spared me because I had developed a habit of throwing the fish the fishermen caught back to her.

  ‘But Old Baffin, my home, the great city, was now destroyed. All the ancient buildings, the primitive seawall, the Temple of Mythalogorus, all gone. Half of the Tremite Scribes perished in the great wave, and the half that remained were treated with contempt by the Old Baffinites for not prophesying the Mood. This was around the time, you understand, that the Scribes went underground, and began taking fewer students. It was also around this time that my gift of healing began to flow. So I helped those who had been left maimed and disabled by Unah.

  ‘Very, very gradually, Baffin began to be rebuilt, and it became New Baffin, but the remaining Baffinites were left with emotional scars and a new fear and respect for the ocean worlds. Aphrodite began to gain a more powerful position in the city, and the old magical gods were gradually discarded. This I never fully agreed with.

  ‘Sacrifices began to be made to the sea on a regular basis, a practice that still continues to this day in New Baffin, for no-one risks offending the Tomb Goddess. There are some who believe that out of the ashes of Old Baffin arose a stronger and better city. Perhaps I am an old Crone who seeks refuge in a meaningless past, but there are many days when I disagree.’

  Gwyndion opened his mouth to ask why but was interrupted by the sounds of Samma snoring. The bloated meerwog had fallen asleep, fed and content, on Kaliegraves’s lap. Gwyndion was mortified, but Kaliegraves laughed heartily.

  ‘She knows how to tell old Kali that she’s been rabbiting on too much! No doubt you are also weary and would like to rest.’

  Tenderly carrying Samma, Kaliegraves led the way through the long cool corridor of her surprisingly spacious home to a back room, where she had placed a large pewter tray of heaped soil.

  ‘Mary informed me of your requirements,’ Kaliegraves said. ‘The soil around New Baffin is sandier than that of Faia, but I imagine that would be more in the manner of Zeglanada.’

  Gwyndion nodded gratefully. At the moment he could think of nothing better than to plant himself in the soil and rest in this peaceful room, where long white lace curtains fluttered gently in the sea breeze and the odours of the nearby ocean formed a pleasing lullaby to the senses. Kaliegraves placed Samma onto the soil bed and watched her in silence for a moment.

  ‘I agree with Mary that there is an enchantment binding the meerwog. During your time here, it might be wise to consult the Oracles for guidance on how to best break the charm.’ Gwyndion nodded, for he was so exhausted he could barely speak. Kaliegraves smiled. ‘Rest now, young Gwyndion, and tomorrow when you wake, I shall take you for a guided tour around New Baffin.’

  With Morpheus calling frantically to him, Gwyndion slid peacefully into unconsciousness. For the first time in what seemed an eternity, he could rest without fear. His last thought was that no mocking Faery song would dare to disturb his slumber in this healing sanctuary.

  He was wrong. Perhaps it was the unfamiliar surroundings, but as the Webx slept he heard again the haunting Imomm song that had tormented him for so long:

  Gwyndion! Gwyndion!

  Knower of neither love nor sin

  Come back to Faery friend

  Return now to Dreamers’ End!

  We give you Faery love! We make you mend!

  He saw Diomonna, her great wings spread about her as she flew in a dark night. There was a lurking presence near. Gwyndion could sense a danger that the Faery Queen seemed unaware of. Diomonna was smiling, she had sensed Gwyndion’s presence. Her face lit up with joy, and she moved quickly towards the Webx. In the dream he was frozen. He tried to call out, to warn her, but onwards the Faery flew. Her long hair streamed out behind her. Then, shockingly, dark wings enfolded the Queen. Claws, merciless and savage, tore her to pieces in front of Gwyndion’s horrified eyes. Her head was sent spinning into space, her minute jewelled sparrow was released from her chest. Legs and arms were pulled violently from the mangled torso. Gwyndion screamed. Then he saw it, the angoli. Charmonzhla stood to one side, watching with childlike satisfaction the glinting, scattered, bloody remains of the Faery Queen.

  The angoli of persecution faced Gwyndion, with his perfect death-blue child’s face. His beauty was cold as the grave, and his breath was the sweet perfume of death. He opened his mouth and sang:

  Gwyndion, Gwyndion,

  Lover of neither evil nor sin,

  Decay will not touch you,

  Death will not wed you,

  But my sweet tongue will give you rebirth.

  No friend of the ocean, no friend of the earth.

  All that you need is here,

  Charmonzhla.

  He floated slowly towards Gwyndion like a foetus, waiting to be born, his innocence tightly enclosing his core of evil. Now he was only inches away from Gwyndion’s face. Gwyndion stood his ground, locked in a stare with the angoli. Then the angoli’s lips were upon Gwyndion’s, sensual but childlike. A dark warmth spread through Gwyndion’s body. A part of him, repulsed by this contact, screamed to break free from Charmonzhla’s embrace, although another part of him, lower down, cried out eagerly, desiring more. The angoli’s tongue slid inside his mouth, and the two swayed together, drinking of each other. Then, abruptly, Charmonzhla broke the kiss. Gwyndion felt defiled, stained and marked in some horrible way. The angoli was smiling, his tiny bow mouth covered in the sap he had extracted from Gwyndion’s mouth.

  ‘Thy taste is sweet, Webx,’ he said. Gwyndion cringed in terror from his voice. It was a deep baritone — obscenely deep for the apparent youthfulness of the angoli.

  Then he was standing, hand in hand with Gwyndion. They were in front of the Eom. Gwyndion cried out in rage when he saw his Hostlings tethered to the planes of the crystal. Nausea swept over his body at the sight of their stretched-out bodies and their lifeless faces. Charmonzhla giggled, and Gwyndion began struggling, attempting to break the hold the angoli had on him. But the angoli had his arms around him and, with supernatural strength, lifted him up. They flew together at the Eom.

  Gwyndion screamed as they entered the planes of the Eom. Now they hung suspended in the crystal and, through the facets, he could see the zombie-like faces of his Hostlings, pressed closely to the Eom. Floating in the air around them was a musty, sweet smell. Gwyndion’s eardrums felt they would explode with pain at the sound vibration inside the crystal. Around them wriggled billions of black, writhing shapes. The Webx could sense that each shape contained unspeakable horrors, and that each shape longed to be free of the confines of the Eom. Deeper and deeper they descended into the crystal, until finally a small light could be sensed, a tiny candle flame. Gwyndion knew without being told that this tiny flame represented hope.

  ‘Even here,’ the angoli hissed into his ear. ‘Even in the bowels of Eom, there is hope. Remember that, Webx.’ His claws dug deeply into Gwyndion’s arms.

  Gwyndion awoke to find Samma digging her claws into his arm and licking his face, mewing piteously to wake him from his dream. He began to sob as he recalled the dead expressions on the faces of his Hostlings. Only a dream . . . and yet . . .

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Nothing is ever truly lost to us. Memory is a phantom, life a series of ghostly images, moving, walking, believing in its own existence. The air breathes in the past and exha
les it slowly. Dead and living are not separate, but joined as one. We, foolishly believing ourselves to be more than a negative of life, are merely the pause between breaths.

  Gwyndion’s reverie was disturbed by Samma mewing to be picked up. He began looking around with interest as Kaliegraves showed them the more popular tourist spots of New Baffin. Old Baffin could easily be glimpsed among the bustling modern metropolis, where fragments of the ancient city layered with New Baffin. Old memories, ancient dreams supporting the modern, leaving a disquieting feeling of the past fully adjoined to the present.

  They had just exited the Hall of Records, where Gwyndion had been enthralled by a visual re-creation of the Flood of Unah. He had watched in awe, as he sat with a small crowd of tourists all plugged into visual memory — the only visual memory set in Eronth, a gift from the Heztarra Galaxy. The huge wave hovered above them, and they screamed as one. With a wry smile, Kaliegraves had declined to sit through the experience. Instead, she held Samma outside, and when Gwyndion eventually emerged, white-faced and staggering, she laughed bitterly.

  ‘Why you would desire to part with good coins to sit through that is beyond my reckoning! I think it a shameful waste of taxpayers’ money that they even built the visual memory hall!’

  They had then caught the skymobile to the famed gardens of New Baffin. Gwyndion could not believe the tranquillity and beauty of the landscaped gardens. Magical ash trees grew in carefully arranged formations. Pink and silver dolphins leapt from enchanted ponds. Hundreds of owls of varying sizes and colours clung to trees, hooting mournful notes.

  The major drawcard of the gardens was the singing saint’s head, which was housed in a wooden shrine in the heart of the gardens. The head was believed to have been one of the original Baffin Priestesses of the old magical religion no longer practised in New Baffin. According to the myth, the eldest daughter of Old Baffin’s richest nobleman had cut through her own neck, severing her head, rather than submit to the new religion.

  Aphrodite had not condemned the girl for her action. Instead, praising her devotion, she had ordered her to be made into a saint, and the gardens to be built around her in her honour. When the priestess had been thus blessed, her head had burst into song, a sad lilting tune concerning the importance of holding true to faith.

  Over the centuries the head had mummified. Its face was now shrunken, brown and wizened. Only the feminine voice emanating from its dried brown lips indicated the saint’s gender. Gwyndion found it all a bit macabre, but Kaliegraves seemed highly impressed with it, closing her eyes and meditating on the song and leaving a generous handful of coins in the offering box.

  After the singing head, they travelled back into the inner city, to the docks and quay, watching the prostitutes interact with the sailors, savouring the smell of the cooked seafood from the food vans and the freshly cut timber in the nearby shipbuilding yard. They enjoyed the sight of the enormous sailing ships at rest in the harbour after unknown adventures abroad. Hundreds of brightly coloured flags fluttered from the ships’ masts, and the crowded dock was filled with colour and activity. Gwyndion was surprised by the number of hermaphrodites walking the streets. He had heard of these double-sexed beings, but they were rarely seen outside of New Baffin.

  As they were sitting at the docks, the Webx became aware that the crowd of people had swelled noticeably.

  ‘It’s all right, Gwyndion,’ Kaliegraves said. ‘We’ve arrived at an opportune time. You are about to witness the sacred water rites of Adonis.’

  Gwyndion was about to question the Healer further when three tiny girls appeared walking hand in hand on the road before them. They wore long white gowns and their heads were swathed in elaborate gold wreaths. Walking slowly, they threw red roses onto the ground. The first child opened her mouth and sang:

  I pray that love may never come to me with murderous intent in rhythms measureless and wild.

  Her voice was so beautiful that many of the spectators had tears in their eyes. Then the second child sang:

  Not fire, nor stars have stronger bolts than those of Aphrodite, sent by the hands of Eros, Zeus’s child.

  The third child joined in:

  Love is like a flitting bee in the world’s garden and for its flowers, destruction is its breath.

  Gwyndion held his breath in wonderment at the beauty of their voices, and at the sight of hundreds of doves that had risen into the air. Everywhere around him, all action had ceased. The sailors had removed their caps, and the prostitutes were on their knees.

  A procession of twenty or so women followed the young girls. They were bare-breasted, with shaved heads. Some of them looked to be hundreds of years old. Breasts of other maids had just recently budded. They were wailing, tears streaming down their faces as they struck their chests. Snatches of their songs floated to Gwyndion.

  Othum! Othum! Halo! Othum! Bee-like, deathlike, now you float in the air. You are lost, speaking to us only in thoughts and dreams. Hail, Artemis! Cerridwen, Shakti, Shekinah, Tara, Tiamat, Arachne, Freya, Gaia, Lilith, Ariadne, Aphrodite, Morrigan, Durga. Ishtar, Hecate, Isis, Kali, Persephone, Aradia, Diana, Astarte, Athene, Demeter, Bast Medusa, Morgana. Darkness now is yours, now you rot in the earth and water. Othum! All your beauty now gone. You are the breath never released. We scatter you to the waves, to the dark worlds under the foam and as the tide ebbs and flows, know that you will return.

  The older women wore long white bridal veils that fluttered gently behind them. They scattered red roses as they walked and chanted. An expectant pause began to build up in the crowd. Gwyndion observed with surprise that he was shaking as he absorbed the excitement all around him.

  Then he saw a lone figure at the rear of the procession. Flanking her were five black men who played flutes and banged hip drums. The figure they jealously guarded was Aphrodite. Despite her black veils, there was no mistaking the powerful energy that signalled a goddess. At her silent appearance, the enormous crowd let out a huge roar. Weeping prostitutes began prostrating themselves, pulling out huge chunks of their hair. The sailors had fallen to their knees, sobbing at the vision before them. Spectators behind Gwyndion, desperate to get a glimpse of the Tomb Goddess, pushed the Webx to his knees. Doves descended from the skies in their thousands, cooing reverently in a vast humming chorus as they worshipped the slim veiled figure.

  In her hands, Aphrodite carried a golden casket. Gwyndion knew the contents were half of the mutilated remains of her lover, Adonis. The other half of his remains would be given to Persephone in the Underground. The air was filled with emotion and grief as her followers witnessed the suffering the beloved Goddess had to endure annually.

  Gwyndion had heard tales and songs delineating her legendary beauty and seen countless reproductions of her image, but her powers of seduction went beyond her mere physical appearance. Under her veils the Webx had an impression of dark skin, cat-like eyes and hair that was spun white gold. Around her voluptuous hips she wore her magical girdle, an enchanted piece of clothing that could sexually bind anybody to her for eternity if she so desired.

  Gwyndion couldn’t understand why the Tomb Goddess felt the need for such an item of clothing. He had never before seen a more beautiful, sensual woman. Even heavily veiled, she aroused him. He had no trouble chanting enthusiastically with the crowd: ‘Othum! Othum! Halo! Othum!’

  He noticed that Kaliegraves was not hailing the Tomb Goddess, but was holding a large wooden amulet with a crude snake inscribed on it, praying.

  Aphrodite’s bare feet trod on the red roses thrown in her path. Instantly the petals were transformed into white. The crowd roared its approval. She walked slowly to the water’s edge, flanked by the bare-breasted women, as the enormous throng surged forward, trying to catch every moment of the action. They were restrained by the male guards.

  Cries of ‘Blessed Be Aphrodite!’ and ‘The Dreamers are with you!’ were taken up by the crowd as they voiced their encouragement. Rose petals were thrown onto the water by the Bride
Priestesses, and the three children lit the three large black flame lanterns.

  The drumming intensified its rhythm. To Gwyndion it was as if all the worlds held their breath as one, waiting for this sacred moment to pass. Aphrodite signalled with a wave of her hand for all noise to cease. With a loud moan of anguish, she opened the casket and began throwing bits of her mangled lover to the waves. Steam hissed where they hit the water. Gwyndion had the impression that just below the surface of the cold sea water, the Merpeople were floating in their thousands, eagerly scavenging for the holy body parts. Loud sobs came from the crowd as the Tomb Goddess completed her task. Her fingers now red with her lover’s blood, she wiped them on her dark tunic, holding the golden casket aloft. Then without acknowledging the crowd, she began to slowly and sorrowfully walk back in the direction she had entered, as her worshippers threw themselves on the ground before her.

  The three little girls now stood facing the ocean, arms raised, and sang:

  All your beauty now gone. You are the breath never released. We scatter you to the waves, to the dark foam worlds. And as the tide ebbs and flows, know that you will return. Othum! Halo! Othum!

  A screaming black sow was dragged to the water’s edge by two of the topless women. A large knife was produced, and its throat was swiftly cut. The sow was tossed to the ocean, turning the waters red. One of the Bride Priestesses turned and faced the crowd. Her long veil whipped back in the wind, and her sagging empty breasts and distended belly formed a vivid testament to the years she had lived and the children she had borne. She made a sign of benediction over the assembled crowd, who cheered. Slowly the Bride Priestesses and the little girls departed the dock, making their way through the spectators, who begged for the grace of touching their feet.

  ‘Well!’ Kaliegraves grinned. ‘Quite a show, eh Gwyndion?’

  Gwyndion nodded, his eyes still shining with excitement. ‘I can scarce believe that it’s my first full day in New Baffin, and I’ve already set eyes on the Tomb Goddess!’