by Alan Baxter
Isiah made a reassuring face. ‘I won’t do anything to embarrass you.’
‘Can you travel between places without moving? We call it Sliding, moving from the corporeal to the astral and back again, transferring our location.’
Isiah nodded. ‘I call it Shifting or Travelling. Capital T.’
‘I see. I’ve heard it referred to as Shifting before. So you are able to Shift easily?’
‘Certainly. But I need to know where I’m going. I need to have seen it before, physically or astrally, doesn’t matter.’
Petra reached out and put her fingertips very softly against his temples. Her touch was warm and delicate and he felt a slight surge pass through him. He knew she hadn’t begun anything yet, it was simply her touch that thrilled him. He hadn’t been attracted to a woman like this for a long time. It was rare that he found a woman that could understand him, could empathise with him, with his life. He wondered how mortal Petra was. Her powers belied someone that had more experience than her physical appearance of age would suggest.
‘Not as old as you, but I’ve seen centuries pass,’ she said, almost a whisper under her breath.
With a start he realised that she was connected to his mind. She had heard his thought as clearly as if he had spoken it. Her ability was incredibly subtle. He hoped she had only heard his thought regarding her age and quickly blanked his mind before he gave away anything else that might embarrass him. He saw the corners of Petra’s mouth twitch slightly, as if suppressing a smile.
‘I’m going to give you an image,’ she said, and Isiah’s mind was flooded with information. The first sensation was extreme cold, a wind whipping in fits and bursts, snow, ice, rocks. He closed his eyes and saw a picture in his mind of a mountainside, sharp and rugged. Tufts of yellowing grass hung to cracks between rocks, their tips dragged and pushed by a jittery wind. As he looked around the image in his mind he found himself near the top of a mountain in a range that stretched forever in every direction. Some peaks hidden in cloud, some higher than his position, some lower.
‘The Himalayas?’ he asked.
Petra’s voice was in his mind now, not travelling through the air to reach his ears. ‘Yes. These peaks are in what is currently called the Tibet Autonomous Region, not far from the borders of Sichuan and Qinghai Provinces. Do you know the region.’
‘Vaguely. There aren’t many places that I haven’t been. But I don’t know these ranges well. I couldn’t really tell one part from another.’
‘It’s okay. As long as you know what to expect we can Shift together. Look up the slope.’
He followed her instruction, turning to look further up the peak in his mind’s eye. A collection of buildings spread across the mountainside, linked with walkways, some across sharp chasms hundreds of feet deep. The buildings looked to be moulded into the rockface, carved from it. The whole complex completely inaccessible on foot. It would be virtually invisible from anything more than a few hundred feet away. The buildings, the same dark grey stone as the mountains, had tiled roofs in the Chinese style. Snow piled against the tiles and in the corners of the walls. Dragon’s heads protruded from the corner of each shiny, corrugated roof, icicles hanging, wet, glassy. Round windows with dark red detailing dotted along the walls. The buildings seemed to be in something of a random order, but they all appeared to surround the largest which stood more or less in the centre, the whole structure like a deeply complex mandala. The main, central hall, a massive building, glowed with orange light from inside. A large paved area in front of the hall, a low stone fence all around it, protruded into space as the mountainside dropped away. Yet for all its detail, it seemed a part of the mountain, blended with the rock.
Petra drew Isiah’s mind up onto the paved courtyard, the flagstones worn by centuries of feet and weather. Small stone benches stood all around the edges, snow-covered, and a snow-filled fountain showing a dragon in combat with a tiger stood against the wall of the hall. ‘We will travel here,’ her voice said in his mind. ‘Keep this place in your imagination. I’ll Shift us, but you have to help. I can’t actually carry you with me, I don’t have that kind of power.’
He decided to let Petra in on a little of his own power. He reached his mind out to her and wrapped his will about her. ‘I can carry us both,’ he said, not using his voice now either. ‘Just show me the way.’
Petra made a small sound. Isiah hoped it was an expression of how impressed she was, but was not convinced that was it. She began to Travel, slowly dissipating from their current location. Her method was slow and cautious. Isiah was patient, keen to avoid rushing her or dragging her along. Once she was committed to her course of action he took over, following her lead and carrying them both to that stretched, soundless, lightless place of nothing that existed between all the Realms. In moments the heavy weight of corporeality dragged on them again and sudden biting wind pushed at them violently. Petra ran for the cover of a small porch beside the fountain and he followed, holding up the collar of his leather jacket against the elements.
Petra looked up at him. ‘Winter is not the best time to visit here, but we have no control over that.’
Isiah nodded, a half smile tugging at his lips. ‘No matter. I’m pretty bloody impressed regardless. The way we just got here, that’s the only access really, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. You have to be brought here by someone and then you need to learn these methods if you ever plan to go anywhere alone. We’ve been hidden for a very long time and this is one of the secrets of our success.’ She pulled open the door, though not before Isiah sensed a surge of MageSign that lingered after they passed into the shelter of the building.
The anteroom they entered was simple. Flagstone floor, candle lamps burning on the walls, otherwise empty. Except for two men, young looking and serious, wearing robes the same dark grey as Petra’s clothing when she was in ninja mode. They smiled at Petra, nodding. ‘Sister,’ one of them said in Mandarin Chinese. ‘You’ve brought a guest home with you?’
Isiah spoke up, keen to let them know he understood their language. He understood most languages and knew it was rude to let people think otherwise. ‘My name is Isiah,’ he said fluently. ‘An honour to make your acquaintance.’ He bowed formally.
The two men returned his bow and Petra looked at him with that amused expression again. Isiah was annoyed at the way he seemed to entertain her rather than impress her.
‘Is our Master here?’ Petra asked the man that had spoken to her.
‘Yes, he’s here. He will be leading a class shortly. We are just about to begin. Perhaps you will join the class and speak with him afterwards?’ The man looked from Petra to Isiah.
Petra spoke. ‘I will join the class. Perhaps Isiah would like to watch.’
He heard the emphasis, the kind of spoken gravitas that gives an otherwise ordinary word extraordinary meaning. He was keen to learn as much about these people and their activities as possible. ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘I would be very interested to watch you train. What sort of class?’
‘We have many disciplines here,’ Petra told him. ‘It could be any one of many. Our teacher will decide.’
The two men led them through another door into the main hall. It was a massive place. Large engraved columns stood against the walls between each window, widening at the floor and again at the ceiling some fifty feet above them. More of the stone benches lined the walls. The floor was the same large, worn flagstones as the courtyard outside. Lights were spaced at intervals around the room, small orbs like tiny suns. They emanated MageSign. Isiah imagined they had burned there for a very long time. Hanging from the ceiling, suspended without any visible structure, a huge set of bones, long, serpentine, wings spread wide. Isiah smiled.
A group of some fifty or sixty people, men and women of all ages, gathered in the centre of the room. The hall could easily have accommodated ten times that number. Before them stood an old man, old even by Isiah’s standards. Immediately he felt the man’s longevity
and power. Evidently he also felt Isiah’s presence, as he turned, looked Isiah directly in the eye. A smile spread across his face, which he then turned to Petra.
He stood before them and Isiah jumped having not seen or felt the old man move. ‘Welcome back, daughter,’ the man said. ‘You have brought with you an interesting guest.’
Petra bowed to the man, low, deeply respectful. ‘Yes, Master. I believe he may be important to us.’
The man nodded and turned to Isiah, bowing. Isiah returned the gesture, showing his respect by bending further than the old man had. ‘My name is Isiah.’
The old teacher smiled benignly. ‘That may be one of your names,’ he said. ‘Welcome to the Temple of the Dragons. I am Cai Wu.’
Isiah bowed again. ‘Master Cai,’ he said.
Cai Wu stepped back. ‘We will practice now. Please, make yourself comfortable and we will talk more later.’
Isiah nodded. ‘Of course.’ He gestured up towards the ceiling. ‘There’s at least one still alive, you know.’
Petra made a small sound of disbelief. ‘Not for centuries!’
Master Cai smiled again. ‘They are gods to us.’
Isiah bowed, retreating to the side of the hall to sit on one of the stone benches. He was surprised that it wasn’t at all cold, then realised that the whole room was a comfortable temperature. He imagined that it always was, regardless of the season. A fascinating place he had found himself led to. He sat back to watch the class practice.
The one known to his people as Dominus sat in the cold cellar and shuddered. It was not the chill that got to him, but the feeling that things were beyond his control. The presence of Yath-vados in his mind, constant, powerful, draining. The stone sarcophagus at the back of the cellar stood immobile, though it appeared to shift and warp in the flickering light of candles. Occasionally a soft, deep moan lifted from it, floating in the silence like an odour. The Sorcerer sat turned away from his charge, his bowed back to the grey stone. ‘It’s consuming!’ he cried.
His face twisted and winced, his eyes looking up and down as he listened to something. ‘You made me destroy my home. You made me run and hide. What am I hiding from?’
Again he cowered as he listened. There seemed to be more than just a voice to the presence in his mind, as though the words themselves were heavy to his physical body. ‘But we can be so powerful already!’ he shouted at the empty cellar. ‘This level of magic, this hiding. I don’t know how long I can carry on.’
After a moment more his face creased in confusion again. ‘What is always there?’
Another few seconds and his shoulders slumped resignedly. ‘Of course.’ He took a deep breath and sat up straighter. Then one eyebrow raised in surprise. ‘Move where? Really? Well, at least the climate should be better.’ A smile spread across the old man’s face as he listened. ‘Very well, my lord. Very well.’ He stood, strode to the steps leading upstairs. His step had a spring that had not been present for some time.
A voice sounded from the front of the house. ‘Dominus?’
The Sorcerer turned to the front door. ‘Come on in, Chris. You don’t need an invitation.’
Chris smiled as he entered. ‘I didn’t want to disturb anything by arriving unannounced. How are things? All going well?’
‘Things are progressing nicely. However, we have to move soon, so you and Jake had better start making preparations. You can come with us or stay and look after the Gather here. What would you prefer?’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Chris replied without pause. ‘We really have to move again?’
‘You know how important it is to keep safe. Organise someone to take over the Gather here.’
They had walked towards the lounge with the huge fire, still burning, orange light dancing. The Sorcerer sat in his customary position and gestured for Chris to relax.
‘Where are we going?’ Chris asked.
The Sorcerer smiled. ‘I’ll tell you when it’s necessary for you to know.’
Chris pursed his lips. ‘We’ve always been a secret society,’ he said cautiously. ‘We’ve kept our secrets well. Why so much more secrecy now?’
‘We are doing things that are unprecedented, my boy. If we are to succeed, we must be very careful.’
Chris nodded. ‘I realise that it is something massive that we’re doing.’
The Sorcerer watched him closely. ‘But?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Something is troubling you. You can be honest with me, you know that. Voice your concerns.’
Chris watched his Dominus for a moment before turning his eyes to the flames. ‘There are some that question our direction.’
‘And in what way do they question?’
Chris took a deep breath. ‘We’ve always been a secret order, Dominus, and a powerful order. We do things that ordinary people don’t even believe in. But we’ve never been a religious order.’
‘Your point?’
‘There are those that question the direction of the ONC in recent years. We always worshipped the blood itself, never a god. Yet over the last few years you have led us towards this worship of Yath-vados the deity rather than blood, the concept. The ideal.’
The Sorcerer nodded, his face serious. ‘And there are people raising these issues at your Gather?’
‘A few people are concerned. Many people in our order are atheists. Many believe in the magic, but not in superior beings. It’s difficult for them.’
‘And yet we also attract new members that are drawn to our god. Drawn to our unique relationship with a god that we know exists.’
Chris made a wry face. ‘Some are suggesting that the god doesn’t exist. It’s an attempt to gain greater control.’
The Sorcerer laughed. ‘Greater control? Ours is a philosophy of anarchy. If we are a religion, anarchy and disruption is our credo. We guide and offer direction, but we don’t control. Yath-vados is not a symbol of control.’
Chris nodded again, but his face betrayed his doubts. ‘But we were never a religious order,’ he ventured again.
The Sorcerer sat back in his chair. ‘For many years, Chris, I have used the blood. For many more years than you can imagine. I was introduced to the ways of blood magic before electric light or the motor car. And I’ve always known that the blood is a tool, something tangible to focus the mind and I have taught you that. But we always gave thanks to the blood.’ He looked Chris directly in the eye, pinned him with his powerful gaze. ‘Well, eventually the blood began to speak to me.’
Chris, held by his master’s gaze, said nothing. But his eyes gave access to his thoughts and he wondered at the sanity of such a statement. The Sorcerer laughed. ‘I sound mad to you?’ he asked. ‘I know. I thought myself mad at first.’
‘What did it say?’ Chris asked.
‘At first it was just the fever of nightmares. I thought myself under attack by some old enemy. Yet the contact persisted and I began to get curious. As I listened harder it became clearer. Eventually it gave me its name.’
‘There’s a lot of power in knowing a true name,’ Chris said.
The Sorcerer smiled again. ‘And once I knew its name, I knew its purpose. And when I knew its purpose, I knew we had discovered something more powerful than we could ever have imagined. It became obvious that we had a course to follow.’
There was quiet between the two men for a while. Eventually Chris said, ‘You consider this is the natural progression of the ONC? You think that all along we were being led to this? You were being led to this?’
‘Yes.’
‘But the ONC is your creation. Don’t gods create things rather than the other way around?’
‘Who is to say that this was not the will of Yath-vados all along?’
Chris stared hard at the fire. ‘Perhaps this is the word we should be spreading through the Gathers. Perhaps this will put dissenting minds at ease.’
The Sorcerer nodded decisively. ‘Very well. Let it be told throughout the Gathers around the world.
At first there was the blood. There has always been blood. And then there was our magic and praise of the blood. Our praise gave rise to the power of the true god of blood and his name is Yath-vados. I was blessed with the knowledge of his true name. Now all that we do, we do in his name. Let it be known that this is not a change in direction but a natural development. Our power and the possibilities before us are truly unprecedented in the world of men and they are possible through our Lord Yath-vados.’
Chris nodded, his face a mask of orange and shadows as he stared into the flames. His eyes bore their own fire, that of zealotry and passion for the man that gave his life meaning. ‘I will spread the word,’ he said. ‘I will commune with the other leaders tonight.’
The Sorcerer stared up at the ceiling, smiling at something beyond himself and Chris, something beyond their Realm. ‘Good lad,’ he replied. ‘And then begin preparations for our move.’
Faith lay in the large bed feeling better than she ever had before. Lars had returned to her the night before, as he promised he would. Everyone else had gone and she had sat in a leather chair, basking in the wonder of what she had seen. The feeling of bliss still permeated the room and she was happy to let it soak into her, sitting there as if in a hot bath, fragrant with oils. And Lars had returned and taken her in his arms and led her upstairs. They spoke little before falling asleep together.
The bright light of morning glowed through the curtains, the heat of the day already strong. They lay naked on top of the bedsheets. Faith watched the slightest of breezes lifting a light curtain that covered an open window. A satisfied smile spread across her face.
‘You’re happy then?’
Faith jumped at Lars’s voice. ‘You’re awake,’ she said, embarrassed.
Lars nodded, kissing her. ‘As are you.’
‘Did I really see the things I thought I saw last night?’
Lars laughed. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think I did, but it can’t be real. How can it be real?’
‘You don’t believe in magic? Aren’t you the white witch?’
Faith’s eyes narrowed. Was he mocking her? ‘It’s not that I don’t believe in magic... but...’
