"I thought we had conducted our business and the deal had been made."
"What deal?" I spat the question out before I could fully think it though and the man sat back looking more in command.
"I will say I am surprised about your strength little girl, no one in over two hundred years has woken up from their dreams here and even then it was a very powerful Mage who was as emaciated as he was emancipated." he laughed at what I assumed was a joke.
"But you took from me so I took my price and that is that. Fisher, my sword please."
The creature came out from behind the chair rubbing its clawed hands together and swaggering now it had power behind it once more.
"Yes Master." it said and eagerly skipped off on its errand.
"What is that thing?" I asked. I thought of keeping this Master talking, there maybe something I can use to help, after all I doubt I would be much good at defending myself from the size and strength of this man who sat opposite me and I couldn't trust my.....whatever it is protecting me from stopping a sword swing.
"It’s a Gnome; pitiful little things and completely unable to interact with others without trying to eat them or reproduce with them. But they have their uses once domesticated. I believe you humans worship them and erect idols of them surrounding your dwellings. No accounting for taste I guess. Do take some wine it’s vintage and worth it."
A glass filled with an interestingly deep shaded red wine was in my hand and I was about to take a sip to quench my dry throat but something screamed at me from within it and I was also so mad with this man and scared for my life that my stomach tied in a knot at the thought of ingesting anything. I put the glass down on the table between us - when did that get there?
"Ah, you are not thirsty, maybe the first drink was enough."
Open mouthed I sat as memories flooded through my mind cascading images over my eyes, my arrival here in this room after a fall through a door that wasn't there and the greeting by the Gnome. Only he was well dressed with red rosy cheeks and a disarming smile, he even had a pointed red hat. The meeting with the Master who invited me to sit and was interested in my story of how I got there. The package, wrapped in thin cloth put on the table and terms of a deal spoken and agreed - one thing from him for one thing from me.
My Clara, who took my hand and walked me home to where Mathew my loving husband was putting logs onto the open fire and embraced me.
The birth of my grand children and their childhood........
...........I snapped out of it, it was hard but I knew it was not real and I didn't want to go back to the happiness because it hurt so much to give it up and come back to the real world.
The Master looked perplexed, he was weaving some kind of spell over me and I had to concentrate not to fall under it. It felt like fingers pushing inside my head. The wine glass had been replaced by my memory box which was open and the letters were fanned out overhanging the lip. I hated them being out in the open in his company and reached forward to push them back in and gently close the lid. I stopped, hand hovering in the air a slim distance away from the yellowing paper.
"No." one small word but spoken largely. I did not touch the offered dream and pulled my hand away. The Master was furious and stood erect from his chair in a second.
"You do not turn away my offers little girl. You do not go back on a deal. You are mine, freely given after you freely took. I am Master here and all things are mine here. Take the box, it’s as real as anything in my domain and it will make you happy for all the breaths you have left which is the best offer you are ever going to be made. You took the wine offered when you came and that is the deal you made; one thing from me and one thing from you and I took you; you are mine!" His eyes and face turned red with the effort of producing his words as loud as they grew. "and I will keep you. No one can take from here that is pure and if there is a devil inside you you cannot enter the gates to my realm. How dare you be here, your presence is an affront to me and you disgust me child."
"I am no man's thing." I screamed, it was all I could do. "and I will never be. I do not know or care of what you offer or any deal, I am here to get something for my employer and I will get it if it’s the last thing I do and I dare you to kill me here or anywhere because if you were going to you should have done it while I dreamed because you sure as hell won't get a chance while I am awake." the ground shook, soil fell from the high ceiling and the ornaments around the chamber rattled, one picture fell from its housing on the wall beside me.
"I am Valentine, I am a Witch, I have power and I will use it to curse you and your 'Here' with everything I have. I do not care for you either but I have come for one thing and I will take that thing; then I will leave and you and your Gnome can go back to whatever evils you decide to do with yourselves."
A wind had generated within that chamber and my hair was whipping around. Pins and needles traveled from my heart down my arms and legs building static within my body and I could feel it wanting to fly out of my pores to demonstrate my anger like a fist thrown at this wicked man.
The Gnome appeared beside his Master with a sword as large as I and as broad as my arm. The Master lifted it effortlessly and held it in two hands pointing to the ceiling at head height so I could just make out one red eye either side of the thick, heavy but more importantly sharp blade.
"You dare to challenge the Master of this house?" he bellowed. "You come here into my everything, take of my hospitality and then you beat my servant, break my possessions and you defy my will in my chamber?"
The sword was swung slowly to his side in a stance I knew he could, if wished and in a second, bring it back around in a stroke that would cleave me in two.
"Hastings. Bring me the box." the Master called and I saw the pitiful man, still chained but able to move, slowly and painfully drag himself up the corridor and into the room holding a wrapped box. He tripped unable to lift his own weight and his package tumbled out of his grasp and rolled along the floor. It looked small, like a present given to a child or a book carefully wrapped, but it also looked large enough to carry within it any number of wonders as if it were the size of a house but rolling end over end in the at the edge of sight.
“What have you done you fool!" demanded the Master and he moved the sword to cover the man who I now knew was called Hastings. "I will punish you terminally when this is over."
The slight movement of the sword in the Master's hands demonstrated his intentions to all within the room. Hastings whimpered and tried to back away but the chains fastened to him had anchored themselves into the ground and he was unable to do more than bend into a crawl. He could vocalise no sound but he was pleading for his life with his eyes.
"Take it." the Master said looking at the box on the floor. "Your master will be expecting you. TAKE IT!"
"And then what? Will I go free or be forced into a dream again?" I asked trying to sound braver than I felt.
"I make you this one deal. And I make it to you here for one time and never again. Take one thing from me and leave unmolested from my realm, but you must never return here again. NEVER, under any circumstances or your life and futures will be forfeit." he said. The Gnome giggled a safe distance away from us brave in his distance.
"I can have one thing and then leave. I have your word on it?" I stated, trying to be as careful with my words as I could so no misunderstanding could be made - I have read genie books before, I knew how a simple wish, if left undefined, could turn to tragedy.
"Yes girl, choose one thing from me and go."
It was a simple choice, made within a heartbeat and as I touched my one thing the Master swept the sword across the room and it cut the very air in two.
I was back in the world above, standing by the mound in a beautiful morning sunrise. Birds were singing tunes of wonder and beginnings in the air and I looked down at my prize, the thing I had dared all to bring back.
"Thank you," said Hastings. "Thank you for freeing me."
Thursday 8th
May
00:30
The atmosphere was alive and it felt like the house parties where my friends and I would enjoy each others company, music and large amounts of alcohol outside on the summer nights without a care in the world. The girls were dancing and singing and even Mary was laughing with pleasure while dancing in the arms of the most substantial of the smoke dancers. When the song finished the smoke dancers bowed to their partners and left them to pursue the dance on their own and the girls retreated to the centre of the circle and Mary who welcomed them all. I felt so happy to be here.
"Are they not wonderful my Sisters? Are they not glorious?" she called. I had to agree as I marvelled at the scene.
"What happens from here?" I asked deeply interested in how she would respond and to know where she could possibly imagine achieving with this kind of power.
"Do you really want to know? Are you brave enough to walk in a bright new future?" Mary was electric as she spoke, filled with energy and power. "I can make you, all of you, strong and wonderful. Do you trust me? Do you want to follow me to greatness?"
There was a chorus of excitement and this was mirrored by the sprites that soundlessly cheered and clapped around us.
"Then I will bestow you all into the secrets of the Universe." Mary raised her arms and the girls raised their voices in a hymn that filled everything and everybody to overflowing.
Mary had a candle as large and square with multiple wicks protruding in a five pointed star at the top; runes were carved into the sides and painted in deep purple. She had her lighter and the atmosphere from this small group was like that of an opening ceremony as she reverently lowered the flame towards the first wick standing proud at the summit of the candle.
"I would not do that."
The words carried across the opening crisply and clearly so everyone turned to locate where it originated, and then silence. I could feel the girls pulling closer.
"No, you would not. You suffer from your own limited imagination and you are so scared to stand in the light." the words were spat from Mary's lips into the night.
"Dark things crave the light. You are a fool to open for them a door for them from night to day." Melody said as she maneuvered out in the dark stepped into the sparse light offered by the flickering candles. Her worn ragged dress flapping in the circulating air and gave her an austere and otherworldly appearance. The aged lines on her face made to look deeper in the cascading shadows.
"And what would you know, you so scared of what you might have achieved that you never tried. You who have held me back at every opportunity, you who crippled my life and you will not hold onto me anymore, we may share the same blood but we do not share the same destiny. Go away old woman, tired woman who is at the end of her usefulness and her life." Mary poured emotion into her words and I could recognise a rebelliousness seen across households on every continent across the ages.
"You live your life like a spoilt child that tantrums when denied her own way. Well Girl, old I maybe but I will stop this impertinence of youth. I can still show you the way if you listen" and with that the old woman cast a glittering powder across the chalk circle which boiled as it made contact with the smoke and producing hissing steam.
The dancers recoiled and spun in fits of pain and many broke up dissolving completely with silent screams. The stronger ones were reducing in stature and retreated to the relative safety candles. Then they began to crash and throw themselves around like waves smashing against cold hard rocks.
"Can't you see you're hurting them" I cried trying to get between the once beautiful dancers and the oncoming witch. I was frustrated at my limited range of options and I watched as the last smoke sprite ripped itself apart into rising steam. I cried at the waste and tragedy of the loss of such free living spirits.
"You are evil beyond all else." called Mary followed by calls and curses from the rest of the Akelarre.
"Good and Evil, Black and White. Call it what it is Girl. It stops here and it stops tonight."
At first I thought the beating of my heart was the only sound in the opening until, with the last of the glittering powder falling to the ground that caused the remaining smoke to appear as if it was sucked back into the candles themselves and with the last mote of smoke an ear piercing scream chilled us all to the bone. The air started to fill with smoke once more, this time much thicker and darker. It smelled obnoxious and caused me to expel my digestive juices onto the forest floor, I was not alone in this reaction. The figures came back bigger and stronger with limbs bent out at angles not conducive to movement in any human imagination. Horns grew from their heads and torsos before falling back into the boiling masses and being replaced in bigger horns or wicked antlers. A variety of gaping maws and predatorily teeth in over filled jaws swilled in and out of existence as each spirit redesigned itself to meet its own ideals in their new environment.
No one moved. Each one of us stood watching the sceptical. I knew it had gone wrong from the crushing atmosphere that now pushed down heavily and the sense of doom that was pouring into my heart.
Then, slowly, ever so slowly and like watching angrily boiling water full of power and motion cool and form crystals as it turns to solid ice, the smoke spirits became substantial and I witnessed what could be described as a foot because it happened to be at the end of a lower limb, touch solidly down upon the ground and the creature stood screaming at the moon.
Thursday 1st May
Then or now
The mound looked as it had when I first saw it; nothing about it looked disturbed, I was half expecting ripped earth and a passage dropping down with which an irate 'Master' carving that big sword around and bounding along with revenge in his heart and murder in his eyes - You cannot imagine my relief when this was not occurring.
Hastings had on him a long straight sturdy branch that split into a 'Y' at shoulder height which provided support to him in his atrophied state as he was failing to find the strength to stand. He stood bent. He was lucky to find it as the landscape was barren and seeing the comfort it gave him I guessed he may have brought it with him.
"Well." I said observing the emptiness of everything around us and in an attempt to raise my own spirits if not that of my new companion "At least the sun’s shining." And it was, the Sun was much lower than I would have guessed and on the other side of the sky to where it was when I first arrived here; there was no car waiting and with a sinking heart I put two and two together making sixteen and almost cried when the thought struck I had been down there for at least a day maybe more and I had missed my lift; abandoned for dead or whatever the thoughts of those left above - no sign of anyone digging into the mound to form a rescue or emergency services combing the area for my body. I felt worthless, not only left to my fate but I didn’t get what I was sent to retrieve which in a way was worse. So, here I was, a failure and with a man so thin even skeleton's would consider h on the skinny side; it was now the low grey cloud decided to expel their loads in the form of icy drizzle.
We settled down into a slow walk towards the edge of the world which spread before us in the general direction that led to where I thought I had come from; from this we watched the sun rise to its zenith and drop back down to Earth again and slip behind the darkening horizon. We hardly spoke as I didn’t know what to say and Hastings didn't have the energy; but we were comfortable in the silence leaning on each other for support.
*
At first I did not hear it, a gentle hum that came from the back ground but demanded attention as it grew louder and, I realised slowly, coming closer.
"Its a car." I screamed, and coughed with a dry throat from a dusty day and no water. "A bloody car coming this way."
Hastings smiled and looked around. "What under Heaven is that?" He replied croakily for the same reasons. "Some kind of beast?"
"Its a car, a car. A....." I tailed off confused. "Its a car." was all I could say to finish.
"When did you go down that hole?" I asked after a moment'
s thought. "When do you think this is?"
"Why the year of our Lord 1328." He said looking puzzled. "And an errand to retrieve the Holy Grail was my task which led me to by befuddlement and confinement and then to my eternal joy my freedom at your hand. I cannot that you enough."
"You think it’s 1320 something?"
"No my Lady, alas I know it is not. I have witnessed many wondrous things and met people from lands not my own wearing all manner of clothes telling stories of fabulous things I could never have imagined."
"What people? I only saw you there, should we go back? Set up a rescue mission or something?" I had stopped, suddenly very weary with leaden feet.
"No, I fear it is far too late to help their poor souls." He hung his head and I felt his weight transfer onto my shoulder. "I at first tried to help them but I could not, after my confinement it was impossible and although I know not what fate many had I know that dark-hearted Gnome assisted in quickening their end."
We left the conversation there, neither willing to go further. The mood was lifted as the hum of the engine became a louder purr changing tones as gears were changed to cope with the rolling curves of a road laid to fit the landscape. Within an excitingly long short time the car came into sight and my heart leapt almost as high as I did, Hastings, dislocated from my shoulder fell to the floor but I continued to jump with joy as The Jag, not just any Jag, but my Jag, the good old Jag. Xanthic was coming to get me!"
It took an age for The Jag to actually reach us and I stayed on my aching feet the whole time out of fear we would not be seen as Xanthic as he sped along the road. The Jag performed a nerve wracking skid as it decelerated from what could easily have been over a hundred miles per hour to a complete stop in - and I walked the skid to make sure, 17 meters.
Diary Of An Occult Resolution Assistant Page 20
