Clasping her hands in front of her to quiet the fluttering in her stomach, she followed him. Torches propped in high sconces lit the pathway. He walked with purpose in his step. She had to run to keep from being left behind.
"Nish ny dyn dy bragh," he muttered in Gaelic.
"What did you say?"
"Coma leat. Pay no heed."
She barely managed to suppress her shivers at the sight of the wrought iron-barred door guarding the chamber she was led into. Despite fires burning in the twin hearths the room was unusually cool. In the near silence, a liquid trickle could be faintly discerned. Its source was a thin stream of water issuing from the open mouth of the stone head embedded in the wall. Water flowed, filling a circular stone trough several feet wide.
Her eyes adjusted to the dim light. The huge altar with its clutter of objects, some familiar, some foreign, all screamed out one word: witchcraft!
What am I really getting into? she wondered.
Despite her brave front, she dreaded becoming a servant of the occult. She had witnessed the agonies Morgan went through and had been revolted by the seeming cruelty and inhumanity of it all.
The cold seemed not to affect him. As he entered the chamber, he began to roll up his cuffs. She glanced apprehensively at the deep scars marring his forearms, disfiguring his smooth skin. Seeing them, she experienced a complex tangle of emotions.
I will never get used to those.
She was unaware she gasped out loud. At her sharp intake of breath, he shot her a vexed glance. Following her fixed stare, he turned up his arm to afford her a better view. His posture was stiff, the stance of a man on the defensive.
"They still bother you?" He traced the line of one scar with a finger. His voice was perfectly controlled. His stare did not waver.
Not daring to speak, she nodded. Goose bumps rose on her skin. She could feel the chill through her thin caftan. God, it was cold in here! She ran her hands up and down her arms, eyes pleading for him not to make her relive the violence she had experienced with him.
"You want to know why I did it?" He pulled his mouth down in a fatalistic frown.
Hesitating, she replied, "I think I get the idea."
"The first time, yes."
"And the second time?"
There was a short pause; then, scowling darkly, he said, "I went looking for it."
He began to circle her like a vulture. In a few short seconds he underwent a mental change just subtle enough for her to note and grow wary. When he next spoke, his voice was mesmerizing.
"You will find things here can be deceiving." He paced around, pushing fear deeper into her. "Your frailties are always prey for the forces at work in the occult, and each time they bite, another piece of your soul will be irretrievably lost."
Listening to the words, turning to keep him in view, Julienne felt as if she were being dragged into a malevolent vortex. The earlier argument still hung between them.
"Stop it!" She clamped her hands to her ears. "How dare you taunt me with the thing that disturbs me. Such cruelty is beneath you! It makes me--" She bit down the words as she tried to dash past him and escape. The emotions of the day were too many, too soon. She had not had time to think them through, understand them. She needed time.
Time was a luxury she did not have.
He lunged and grabbed her arm, forcefully turning her to face him. In a voice devoid of any emotion, he said, "It makes you what?"
He gripped her arm until she cried out.
Terrified, she became aware of the true extent of his strength. If he wanted to, he could easily snap her arm.
"It makes me hate you!" She swung her free hand in an attempt to hit him. "Let me go! You're hurting me!"
"Get used to it! You are not the first, you will not be the last." Angry, he flung her aside and walked away from the confrontation. To stay would fuel further animosity between them. He crossed the chamber and stopped in front of one wall. Folding his arms across his chest, he stared intently at its gray nothingness.
Dropped like a doll, Julienne picked herself off the hard stone floor. Clutching her hands into tight fists, she pressed her lips together to keep further words of rebuke her own, a very difficult endeavor. There was utter silence around and between them. Her parched lips couldn't release the curses scraping her dry throat. Violence was his accepted way of dealing with undesirable situations. Most people would back away, leave him alone.
What the hell is happening? Has he gone insane?
Or perhaps it was because he was afraid himself.
The figure he presented to others was one of practiced indifference, an invisible barrier that served to separate him from the world. He had a certain quality hard to pinpoint, hard to penetrate. It served as a shield for his restless intensity that few could really claim to know. He was always organizing individuals into compartments to ensure no one ferreted out his foibles and weaknesses.
He had discovered early that pinning people down under a hard probing stare and stabbing them with words put them so on the spot they forgot what it was about him they had questioned. Many people went away wondering who he really was but never had the nerve to inquire further. It was an effective defense against people. Don't like him too much. Don't get too close. Made it easier to cut the strings and walk away. Who did his past belong to? No one.
The silence dragged through several uncomfortable minutes. Hours were likely to pass before he would relent and admit what was festering in his mind.
She fidgeted, her anger dissipating. He seemed to have forgotten her, so long had he been staring at the wall. Unsure of how he would react but wanting to mend the rift between them, she finally went toward him.
Perceiving her tentative approach, he turned before she could touch him.
"You are afraid of me," he said. "You always have been, and you always will be, I think."
"I am. This world, your ways, they are unknown to me."
He forced his impatience under control. "You must not fear what is unknown."
"I can't help my fright. I don't know who you are. I see now why I never could really know you."
"Forgive me," he replied, shaking his head. "You are seeing a part of myself I believed would never be revealed to any eyes again. I long ago forswore witchcraft."
"Then don't go back."
"If I do not, you will die. This is the only way I can help you." There was a grim look of determination on his face that she had never seen before.
Backing away, he turned back to the chamber. "It will take place here, and you will see the workings of the arts for yourself."
He indicated the altar. Three spiraling black-and-white candles had been placed on its carved surface. Two sat near its right and left lower edges. The third sat exactly in the center above the three stone goddesses.
The candles formed the points of a triangle, the muses delineated it. A short-bladed, sharp dagger lay within the conjurer's triangle, a lion's head carved into its ebony hilt. Eyes of ruby glowed red in the firelight, alive with an unnatural gleam.
"You've been here earlier arranging this?"
"Yes. I have been preparing to bring you over."
He walked to rough-hewn shelves set deeply into one wall and began to rummage through odd paraphernalia that would have put fear into the heart of one wise in the ways of ritual magic. A large wooden table nearby was similarly cluttered with artifacts.
He removed something wrapped in sheer cloth. Returning to the altar, he placed it in the hands of the goddesses. Julienne could discern a round orb that seemed to be made of chalky white stone. She looked at him. When he nodded, she reached to touch it.
Its surface was rough, pebbly. There were tiny cracks in it. Deep within the stone she thought she sensed some sort of energy. She grew tense, tremors gradually creeping through her entire body until her every nerve seemed to jangle.
"This is it?" she asked. "Where you sent it, that thing?"
"Into the stone," he affirmed. He cros
sed the chamber to kneel before the closest fireplace. On the floor was an elegant rosewood box. Opening it, he took out a slender stick of scented wood. He lit it in the flames and, back at the altar, lowered it to the left-hand candle. The wick caught, spurting to brilliant life.
Julienne, watching in disapproval, hardly dared to breathe. She still felt it was wrong to delve into such mysteries. Her shoulders tightened. She felt the beginnings of a headache.
"Can I ask a question?" she blurted.
His eyebrow arched. "Of course. The idea is for you to begin learning."
"Why do you have…" She shrugged, encompassing the altar and its layout. "…all this? What does it mean, and what can it do?"
He lit the second candle. "Ritual magic is difficult to explain, but in all aspects it is concerned with making reality conform to the will of the conjurer to compel change.
"Every object within nature possesses an identity to give it shape and essence. The basic idea of magic is to take energy that exists in the nonphysical world and weave it into the desired form in the physical world through capturing, merging and transferring those identities. Blended under ideal circumstances, purified by fire and melded by blood, these substances can coalesce and form an entirely new property.
"The use of certain objects sets up lines of communication along which the energies can flow, a conduit, of sorts. There is no real magic, only energy. And when a conjurer masters energy, he can manipulate it to serve his beck. What passes for conjuring is merely the science of the occult."
"But these…gods…you call upon. Do they exist?"
He laughed low and deep. "Gods, deities--call them what you will--are merely figments of the astral energies. There are no gods sitting on Mount Olympus, waiting to answer your prayers. It is just the ancient way of identifying the elementals and categorizing them for a specific purpose. I fall into the old habits occasionally."
She shivered. "It seems so unnatural, so…"
"Evil?" His tone conceded nothing.
"Yes. Evil."
He fixed her with a hard stare. "What do you think evil is, exactly?"
She wavered. "I don't think I know anymore."
"If you are looking for a devil with a pitchfork, let me tell you now he does not exist. Evil exists in the mind and in the hearts of men. Greed, vanity, pride, envy, lust, gluttony, wrath. The seven sins. The things that drive us to hate, to the destruction of others, of ourselves. There is no black or white magic. There is only the intent of the conjurer and how he would use his will."
"You have gone into the darkness…" Her words were not a question, but a statement of fact.
"Many times."
"Then, I don't want you to do this. Please--it's wrong."
He lit the third candle. "This time I will not fall."
At his answer, a frown crossed her face.
He held out his hand, palm up, fingers spread. "Join me now or walk away."
Hesitating a moment, Julienne finally lifted her hand, pressing her palm to his--a gesture of acceptance. She felt deep tension within him, a coiled strength that struck her with almost physical force. She was learning they needed no words to connect and communicate.
"My cheilley er son dy bragh?"
"Together forever," she whispered. She closed her eyes, swallowing the lump in her throat. She could not walk away.
Morgan drew his hand down, motioning for her to take her place at the end of the altar, to the south. She was to do nothing. Only watch. When she was in position, he began to speak in the old language. His voice rose, tainted with eerie undertones.
"Ever round the circle goes, a rotation interrupted but never broken. In life, there is death. For death, resurrection, the renewal of the cycle." He spread his hands around the strange white orb. "Call I now a rising of what is eternal, a part of my identity I have too long disavowed. Spirit of thy will, essence of my self, I bid thee come forth."
A gust of air stirred, bringing with it a faded echo, a voice calling from an endless depth. It began to speak, rising and falling, gathering strength and volume, a strange chant in a horrible, wailing key. The candles flickered but did not go out. Misty white fingers appeared around the edges of the room. In the twin hearths, the cinders appeared to glow like little glowering eyes through the fog.
Within its circle, the white orb rose. Hovering high above their heads, it began to glow, taking on a strange luminescence. The keening wail deepened, a rushing crescendo of pure, unfettered energy, until it ranged beyond the reach of human ears.
Julienne listened, breathless. Unaccustomed to the experience of protracted ceremony of intonation and gesture, she found the meaning incomprehensible. His words beat on her ears and brain with bone-shattering force. She tried to shut her mind and ears, but she could not. The air surrounding her quivered, crawling over her skin like a thousand tiny insects.
As she watched, the cracks in the orb began to grow. A strong sulfuric odor assailed the closed atmosphere of the underground room as mist began to seep from inside the globe. The stone dissipated as thin strings of yellow gradually took on substance; it was a spirit that stirred and fought its bonds, growing and whirling as it emerged from captivity.
Gagging, she put her hands over her nose and mouth, stumbling away from the altar. The smell brought to mind a freshly opened grave, the corpse inside bloated and rotting and crawling with maggots. She struggled not to be ill. Morgan's voice deepened, his words quickening and pulsing. A single, wailing dissonance answered him like a smothered sob.
The yellowish mist grew viscous. Across the altar, the haze began to take on the shape of a hooded figure. Cloaked completely in black, it hovered inches above the floor. Slowly, it grew animated, lifting its bowed head. No face was visible beneath the hood. A wail issued from the void, a long, chilling screech. Coppery-orange eyes slit open to reveal red pupils, eyes resembling those set into the dagger.
"You have come back." The voice of the apparition was raspy, as if there were neither mouth nor tongue to give it shape and tone.
Gasping, Julienne closed her eyes. Revulsion tightened her jaw. This thing was a part of him, a piece of his self and soul he could no longer deny. Through his heritage, through his very blood, he belonged to the occult.
"I have," he said, speaking in the language of witches. Slowly, by memory, he began to speak the ritualistic litany. When he ceased speaking, the hovering apparition nodded.
"What will you give?"
"I offer sacrifice of myself."
The glowing eyes under the unfathomable hood grew narrow. "Promise in blood."
Julienne had forced away her aversion, gaping at the thing with fascination, listening to the strange conversation.
"No!" Rushing forward, she grabbed Morgan's arm. She gave a fear-filled glance at the menacing cloaked figure. "I won't let you do this!"
He shook off her grip. "I have made my choice!" he said with unusual force. "I will give of myself. Get away so I may do this."
Desperately wanting to be rid of the terrible images, Julienne backpedaled until she felt the rough stone of the wall against her back. As if in the grip of a dream, she could not move, could not cry out. She could, had she the will, shatter the ritual, send that damned thing away.
But action was beyond her. She could not raise the courage to defy Morgan.
Whimpering in her throat, she let herself slide to the floor, feeling helpless and hopeless.
God! What's happening? This isn't what I wanted, for him or for myself. No good could come of delving into things best left alone. In her heart, she divined it would utterly destroy him.
Pleased she had sense enough to obey, Morgan held out his arms, hands palm up. He murmured more strange words, speaking with an intensity that was frightening.
"Bound by me, bound to me, I offer flesh, blood and bone. Cast thy darkness upon this shell, all most powerful, one and all."
A series of vertical red welts began to rise on his pale skin, going up his forearms as th
ough some invisible hand were drawing a razor-like lash across his arms. The ridges began to part, blood welling from the cuts. His face revealed no pain.
Across the altar, the dark entity lifted its arms, mimicking him. Bony hands slid from its sleeves. It reached across and grabbed Morgan's arms, skeletal fingers twitching and tightening.
An eldritch metamorphosis began to take place as Morgan's blood was absorbed by its touch. Veins, tendons, muscle and skin began forming over bare bones at a rapid rate. Whispery words echoed.
"Granted."
The grip grew tighter, infusing Morgan's pale skin with an otherworldly luminosity. The entity began to melt, merging with its host.
The surrounding mist grew thicker, became a churning mass that spread to enfold both figures. When it cleared only a single figure stood alone at the altar, cloaked in black.
Deathly silence enshrouded the chamber. The quiet trickled, crawled back then surged up, suggesting the unfettered vastness of the astral realm. Throwing back his head, he let the hood slide away from his face. He shuddered. His fingers curled as he pressed his mutilated forearms to his chest before dropping to his knees.
"Morgan?"
Julienne struggled to rise, but her foot twisted beneath her. She tried again, this time managing to stand. She surveyed the dusky room, expecting to see the red eyes of the apparition watching her from the shadows. When she did not, she took a tentative step forward, then a second and third.
Head down, eyes closed, Morgan was absolutely frozen. Falling to her knees, she put a hand out, barely daring to touch the silken material of the accursed black robe.
"Morgan?" Her voice was choked with worry. "My God! What have you done?"
Tears blurred her vision.
He lifted his head and opened his eyes. Disoriented, he took several deep breaths.
"This isn't right! What has it done to you?"
"We are again one." His accented voice was a whisper. His calm was uncanny, a practiced thing that made her wary.
"You need to get away from this." She tried to pull him from the altar. "You have no right to torture yourself."
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