by J. D. Glass
The death of her mother: the heart that had stopped, the lungs blocked by blood, her father’s heartbreak. And what they, the carrion and the life eaters, wanted her to do was to fail her test, turn her back on the Light, and join them. All it would take was her intent. And they showed her what they would do, should she not fail.
They promised her a violent, painful death, a life that would make her beg to die should she continue through to her sealing.
It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, they were just images of a past already done, unchangeable, of a future unknowable, she assured herself, she was in the circle and—
Yes, they howled back, that was true, it wasn’t real, at least not for the moment, but as above, so below, they mocked, a high-pitched and windy whine, the scrape of stone on stone, and the muddy, sucking sound of sludge.
These sendings, these images on the Astral weren’t just a history of the Material, they promised, they were the future, her future.
More scenes immersed her in their fully dimensioned play, battered at her mind, ripped at her heart. She saw her best friend, Frankie, blue, bloated, dead, her hair shorn and the despairing reek of suicide in the air. Nina, alive again only to walk into school with that beautiful face bruised, and again, Ann watched images of her being beaten, drowned, cutting herself, the same way Ann had.
Cort’s robust form broken, lifeless at the bottom of the stairs, Elizabeth, torn, bloody, her eyes, those beautiful eyes—
And then she saw it, no him, no…naked, humanoid, genderless, with black slits for eyes and…were those ears, or horns? She couldn’t tell, made as they were of the same gray, almost rubbery-seeming skin, and his voice spoke above the din.
“You can fight, you know—they’re no match for you, or the Sword—step forward, and you can banish them,” he promised. He held out a hand, no, it was a cleft hoof. “One step, Child of Light, and you’ll be free, free of the cycle, the horror, and the pain.”
His eyes glittered beetle-black back at her. A tiny pink tongue played about the hole that was his lipless mouth. He, more than any of the other creatures she’d seen, repulsed her. His skin reminded her of a dead rat she’d once seen at the beach near the home she’d grown up in: hairless, bloated, ready to explode into a shower of stinking rot at the slightest touch.
She leveled her gaze on him, refused to answer, refused to move except to hold herself in readiness. She did not know that it was her will, and her will alone, that maintained the barrier that kept her safe.
“Oh, you’re scrumptious,” he answered her silence, even as the other shapes quieted and drew back. She could feel the avid hunger in their gazes as they watched the exchange. “You have my word.” He smiled, and in that moment his mouth yawned impossibly huge with the brief flash of fangs before they were hidden again by the almost ridiculously small opening he spoke through. “I only promise that which can be delivered.”
He gestured to the horde that surrounded them. “Look at them—delicate, weak, armed only with their taunts and threats…certainly, what they show you may be true, but what match are they for you, young and strong, armed with a relic of true power on the many worlds?”
It was tempting, tempting to do exactly what he said: she more than likely could defeat them if she were to respond, to step out from the shield she’d surrounded herself with, to strike with the strength that fear and anger granted—and forfeit her place forever, leaving her to become one of them, which is what they really wanted.
She shuddered and almost felt the body she’d left behind twitch in response. It was a certainty that bled from her very core. They would destroy her.
“You lie,” she said simply as she faced him.
He held up a hand. “I tried,” he told her, shaking his head in seeming resignation. “Have at it,” he said to the beasts that surrounded them and dropped his hand, the signal that set them off again.
Creatures made of shadow and darkness, apparitions that stood more than twice her height that she knew to be hounds, circled and hunted in and through the howling, the curses, the threats, and the sendings. Still, she resisted and stood her ground, let the images wash and play before her as she remained, unmoved.
*
It was one thing to willingly place oneself on the Astral.
It was another to visit it like everyone else did, in dreams.
My first test was followed by a series of nightmares, dreams of wolves—not the elegant, noble animals I’d run with on the Astral, had joined and become, but haggard beasts that slavered and snapped with a viciousness that forcibly reminded me that there was such a thing as true, undiluted malice. They shifted and simmered, became what I finally knew were hounds, shadow hounds, ten, twelve feet tall, made of a smoky and oily blackness.
They sniffed and pawed at the doors of my dreams, followed me when I woke, a dark cloud approaching from the periphery when I went out onto the roof to sit by myself and gaze over the town or just stare up into the starry sky, until I realized that I could create in the Material the same ring that guarded me on the Astral.
I centered, focused, walked the Aethyr and cast the warding around the house, the Light manifest within and without until the hounds could only paw and circle the boundary of the yard, track me through Aethyr and Astral in my dreams until there too the barrier I created became reflex, automatic, and their frustrated ululating yowl would wake me in the early morning darkness, the echo ringing between worlds.
I told Cort about it over breakfast the first time I’d done it, to ask if I’d done it right.
“And that’s another you’ve passed,” he said with a smile. “You’re coming along nicely.”
Surprised, I put my fork back down in my eggs. “That was a test?”
“Yes, dear heart,” he said as he sugared his tea and Elizabeth smiled at me from her seat.
“Everything you’ll ever do from now on is,” she said.
“Everything from now on—as in forever?” I asked, and looked to each of them. I was daunted by the prospect—it sounded like a lot and I remembered quite clearly what he’d said: I couldn’t fail any of them.
Uncle Cort’s teeth gleamed at me as he put his cup down. “Everyone’s life is like that—just not everyone knows it.”
Okay, I could go with that, but, “What about all the Astral stuff? Is that different?”
He laughed lightly. “Yes…and no. But you’ll know when you’ve passed those particular tests.” He rested his gaze on me as I struggled to understand.
“How will I know when I’ve passed those?” I asked finally.
“You’ll know,” he said and picked up his cup again, “because you’ll feel it, and you’ll know for certain,” he grinned at me again, “because I’ll tell you.”
Elizabeth nodded her chin toward my plate to remind me to eat. “You’re not going to like those cold.”
She was right, and I allowed myself to be pleased with my progress as I speared my eggs.
*
It happened almost exactly as I’d been taught: as above, so below. I saw them, haggard and human, lounging in front of Uncle Cort’s shop when he finally took me there for the first time. They took off running as we approached the gates that covered the door. But I recognized them for what they were.
“Hounds, right? Human hounds?” I asked him as he passed me a key to unsnap a set of locks.
“Yes,” he answered shortly. “They’re looking for you. If you can be turned before you’re sealed—well, you’d be a very powerful ally. But if they can’t turn you,” and he faced me, his gaze focused, intense, “they’ll try to stop you—any way they can. That’s why,” he pointed to the ankh that hung from my throat, then motioned for me to precede him through the door, “you wear that. It’s older than you think, and it’s been charged with more than just your life binding.”
“I don’t understand.” I fingered the charm and its chain and wondered how old it really was as I stopped to put my books down on a clear space on the front c
ounter.
His hand was gentle on my shoulder. “You’re marked, dear heart, and for now, until you are safely sealed, you carry a powerful shield with you. It’s an announcement, yes, not only of who you are, but also of the Circle you belong to and the energy being focused to protect you. It’s safest for you that way.”
I still wasn’t certain I completely understood, and I let that rattle around in my head as I inspected the display that spread in an arch on the surface. The counter bore athames, ceremonial daggers that were used in ritual that ranged from pure utility—the traditional simple double-edged blade approximately a hand-span in length, the hilt not quite two-thirds that and narrower than the blade—to the downright fantastical—handles wrapped in soft leather, or carved of malachite and onyx and inlaid with opal moons and stars or some of the various symbols I’d learned, blades mirror bright or black with fine filigree patterns, male and female figures, flowers on intricate vines. They were beautiful.
“Damascene,” Cort said nonchalantly over my shoulder, noticing which ones I stared at with fascination.
I must have worn a strange expression and he gave me a friendly pat.
“C’mon, let’s show you some real history,” he said jauntily. “I’ve some things in the back I think you’ll enjoy.”
*
Night had fallen on the Astral, and she stood at the edge of the Tanglewoods beside Cort, her aethyric body thrumming with excitement and anxiety. “This time, Ann, we have a target,” he told her and pointed down the slope toward the center of the plain where mist rose. It carried a shimmer, a reflection of the starlight above and the river beyond.
In the world of the flesh, the wolf moon, the hunting moon had arrived and in the Aethyr, the Astral tide had changed as the Dark, the hungry nothing, built and swelled to its greatest moment of power in the waning of days. As above, so below: the days grew shorter while the nights became longer, and tied as a particular level of the Astral was to specific regions of the Material world, the changes happened here first.
While she couldn’t see all of them clearly through the shifting of forms and function, she could feel the host that surrounded and supported them, some of them beings she knew well. Familiar scents and sensations, here the distinct rub of fur against her arm, the warm press of a flank against her shoulder as another passed, an unmeaning but friendly shove in the jostle and jockeying for position that was more about the relieving of anticipatory tension than anything else. She felt it too, and the jangle of metal on metal sounded through her ears along with the growing mutter, the excited buzz of impatience as she loosened her shoulders, flexed and stretched her back, her legs, in the impatient pound of hooves, the slight brush of her elbows, the backs of her calves as others fought to contain themselves until the time was—
“There!”
The call rang out, the wolf-pack howl, the roar of the great hunting cats that ran with them, the commanding keen of hawks that flew above, and through the center of the mist, a boiling black space that swirled, coalesced, took on form…became a horde, a mass of claws and wings and teeth that charged.
Cort threw her a toothy smile in the half second before thought became action, before the challenge was answered and they were off, the hunt purposeful now: to rout the invading dark force, human adepts and nonincarnate beings who attempted to invade, to twist and remake, this level of the Astral that reflected the Material.
If they could do so, then the Law would be followed: as above, so below, and that part of the Material world would pay the price of their failure to defend now and the Dark would grow, would find it that much easier to further invade other parts of the Astral when the rotation of the planet brought other sections of it to the same vulnerable point.
Ann already knew her position here, Cort had told her clearly. “Don’t engage—track, hunt, seek—announce what you find.”
“What if I don’t know what to do?” she asked. “What if I don’t do it right?” What if we’re overrun? was the question she didn’t ask.
“Once we’ve started, follow the hawks—watch where the lines break, spot for sneak attacks. Learn to see, to fight with your sight. If…” He hesitated. “If the line falls, then you do what you must—but that won’t happen,” he said and gave her a sharp grin.
“How do you know?”
He looked at her a long moment. “Because it can’t,” he said, his voice strong, determined. “It simply can’t.”
Anacrusis
I see, I forget. I hear, I remember. I do, I understand.
—Chinese proverb
Two weeks later, and my shoulders were so tired they burned with pain that seemed to have voice, a voice that sang high-pitched in my ears; I opened my eyes to find my head had bowed, but I’d held the blade Cort had given me, had held it up and high.
Each physical training session was now followed by an Astral one, and they were both grueling. I repeatedly faced images, realities, possibilities with varying levels of probability above, things that could or would manifest in myriad ways on the Material unless stopped there.
Everything Cort and I did now revolved around the focus of Light, to strike with compassion, understanding, to remember always that every conscious being arose from and was meant to remain a part of the Light, all growing, evolving, toward a level of understanding, of being, existing, that was beyond my limited human senses and biology to comprehend fully.
Rigid training and discipline—hence, the kneeling position with arms upraised—would ensure that my physical mind and body would act and react from force of habit as opposed to emotion, and in turn, my mind, my intentions, my sense of spirit were etched indelibly upon the metal lattice of the blade’s structure due to the constant physical contact, attuning our charges as it were, in the same way that a magnet groomed metal and transformed it. In the process, I became able to perceive the intentions of those who had held it before me, before my father. I could now easily discern the energy, the spirit in which it had been formed, because its essence lived, a heart of Light literally buried into the crosspiece from the hilt to the first few inches of the blade.
I felt it every time I held it, and each time I did so a growing sense of comfort with the weapon, with its embedded presence that was fast becoming an extension of myself, grew.
“Let me help you,” Cort said as he removed it from my hands, then guided my arms down. “You’re pushing too hard,” he said gruffly, but his hands were as gentle as they were strong when he rubbed my shoulders against the numb and the ache then carefully removed the weights I still wore.
“I just want to get there already, you know?” I told him, and I could hear my voice sounded as tired as I felt. I was so tired, in fact, I skipped our usual friendly argument about the color of the scabbard—we disagreed as to whether it was a deep blue or black—and sat back on my heels. The nausea and headache that accompanied it forced me to use all my will to fight the natural pull of gravity, and the hyperreality of the Astral hunt and chase as well as the images those…things…had thrown at me—anything and everything that could have been or possibly be, all in an attempt to draw me out, to either fight or quit—continued to whirl through my mind.
A burst of friendly cheer that made me smile flared through the room as Elizabeth entered the study, hair bound as always—pulled from the sides and loose at her shoulders, the ends curling over her white blouse.
The wire-rimmed glasses she wore couldn’t hide the sparkle of her eyes. “I think you might need this right about now,” she said as she smiled at me in return and handed me a heavy, hand-fired mug, glazed in graduated shades that ranged blue to copper, the solidity and warmth of it welcome against my chilled palms.
“Thank you,” I told her before I sipped at the milky tea.
She nodded and after making sure I’d neither choke nor drown myself with my almost complete lack of fine motor control, she placed a plate of scones next to me. Cranberry and pecan, I noted. I was a fan of those, and Elizabeth baked th
em herself in the more than ample kitchen.
“Here,” Cort said as he took a throw blanket from the settee and threw it around my shoulders. I tended to feel cold after sessions, and the blanket prevented the chill and stiff from setting into my shoulders.
“I’ll take care of the room later,” he told me.
I smiled my thanks at him over the mug as the deep blue, almost black wool gently scratched against my neck.
I was almost fully recovered; at least the disorienting nausea had abated, and the throb in my head had faded to manageable annoyance, as he crouched down before me. His gaze matched his tone in solemnity when he spoke.
“Elizabeth and I”—and he glanced up at her for a moment as he took a breath—“we both think you’re ready to know, to understand a bit more about the Law. There are things you need to understand, completely, because there are consequences and…” He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly and the lines around his eyes tightened as his face worked. “This is part of who you are, and who you’re meant to be, love. It’s my job to make certain you’re guided to it.”
“I’ll take it from here,” Elizabeth said as he hugged me.
I nodded against his broad shoulder, steadied by the coal-tar soap smell, the same as my father’s, which suffused his shirt.
“Okay then,” he said as he released me and rose, “and if you’ve questions, after, please, ask either of us, both of us, however many times you have to, until you understand. Promise me?” he asked as he stood by the doors.
“I will.”
He winked at me as he walked to the door. “I’m in the workshop if you need me later,” he said, then left.
Elizabeth had already partially set the room to rights and had pulled a seat before the fireplace for me.
“Come, sit with me, Annie,” she said and patted the seat.
Refreshed enough, I rolled my shoulders and stretched my back under the blanket I still wore as I crossed the hardwood floor and stepped lightly onto the carpet.
