by Dion Fortune
He had forgotten all about the ritual. It was not a ritual, it was a reality. The woman facing him across the altar stood for everything that had been lacking in his life. She was no longer Miss Le Fay whom he respected, nor Lilith whom he loved; she was simply a woman who represented all women; she had in her hands all that women give or withhold from men, and he represented all men who had ever been thwarted and frustrated and wronged by the selfishness and ignorance and cowardice of women, and she should pay him not only for her own wrongs, but for the wrongs of all men thus frustrated.
There was in him a fierceness of rebellion that was ready to fight, and go on fighting, against what he felt to be a falsity and an injustice. What was natural in him had its rights as against society, and society had defrauded it and misled him, and he had at long last, risen in rebellion.
The primitive, archetypal, subliminal levels of consciousness had come to the surface and made common cause with his rational mind, and his intelligence was at the service of his subconscious urges. He was a powerful, elemental being; primeval man at one with Nature, with the drive of all life behind him. Looked at from one point of view he was completely letting himself go, and was as dangerous a brute as any woman could be called upon to face, alone in an empty house; looked at from another, he was bringing down fire from heaven, and, as always, it was stolen fire.
His curious pale eyes were glittering like ice in his mask-like face whose pallid skin was beginning already to glisten with sweat. They were the eyes of a madman, or of a Viking gone baresark. The woman watching him from the other side of the altar saw his hand drop to his hip, and knew that he was after the leaf-shaped bronze knife that should have depended from a broad leather belt girdling his loins, and knew, too, that the levels of consciousness were coalescing—the subliminal and the superliminal. Malcolm at the moment might be a dangerous brute, but he was also a powerful magician. She knew also that the line was a very narrow one between a very nasty experience at Malcolm's hands and a very potent piece of magic, and deliberately she took her risk.
Malcolm and she were watching each other like two duellists. The power was through to the personal level now, and on the personal level it had to be handled, picked up, steadied, and swung up the planes again. She saw him inch by inch sidling towards the left, and knew that in a minute there would be a dash round the altar. If she spoke, she could break the spell, the spell of the up-welling primitive, and bring the man back to normality, but she did not wish to break the spell, and did not speak. Instead, she herself began slowly to edge round the altar so that it remained between them, its flickering light and rising spire of incense an effectual barrier against the tide of elemental force that was coming up from the depths through the channels opened by the unleashing of Malcolm's passions.
They had exchanged places now, and she was in the west and he in the east with the mirror behind him. As he came into the east, the place of the priest, a change came over him; it seemed as if the different levels of his consciousness all came into focus together, and were united, so that the past lived again in his soul and the future came into view; he was the sacerdotal outcast he had been, and the great adept he would be, and the adept was built upon the outcast.
As once before, the woman he loved was alone with him in the Holy of Holies, hidden from the eyes of the profane by the veil that Isis always draws across Her doings; but this time he had not come as a thief in the night, but was there by the summons of the Goddess; there by right, in his appointed place, doing the work for which he had been sent. It was terrible work, sacrificial work, but he would do it aseptically, with clean hands.
He had, he knew, to descend into hell and let loose the elemental forces that should provide the motive power for the magic; he had to do it as a man, and as a priest, for the two are inseparable in magic, trusting to the woman who faced him across the altar, the high priestess, to handle the unleashed forces and by her knowledge and her power transmute them into magic on a higher arc.
He looked into her eyes through the smoke of the incense that rose from the altar, and saw that they were steady and serene: she seemed to stand in a core of calm in the heart of the cyclone he had let loose about himself and her. She stood upright upon her feet between the pillars of equilibrium, poised and at ease, her hands resting lightly upon the altar, palms downwards, whereas his were gripping it as if he were about to spring. She was giving him no help with the magic of the elements, that was his task as the sacrificial priest; she was waiting as high priestess for him to do his part and hand over to her the forces he had called up from the depths.
The room had faded from his sight and he was in the cave of Black Isis doing the great rite that was only done once in four years. People might call it black magic, but he knew that it was not evil although a man lay dead on the altar, but was simply crude elemental power. If they had left it at that level it would have been evil, but they would not leave it there; the high priestess would take over from him, and transmute the power, and take it through with her to the temple of Great Isis, where it would flow out through the curtain of the holy of holies like a beam of moonlight, and vivify the mummified form of the Goddess that lay between the sphinxes, for thus is the magic done; and therefore is the Holy of Holies left empty.
The woman who was watching him saw the change come in him and braced herself to meet it. Her mind, too, went back to the dark cavetemple and the grim, outcast priest who had desired her and who had destroyed himself to get her. There were the makings of greatness in him, as both she and the great high priest had recognised, though the time had not been ripe.
Then her mind opened upon another scene she had never known before—the scene of the torture, when, by magical means, her spirit had been called back to confront the man who had caused her death, and force a confession. But in the high priest there had been more insight than in the judges, and he and she, facing each other across the body of the strapped-down man on the torture-table had agreed that the appointed time would come. And to her mind there came another and strangely contrasted scene—the consulting-room in Wimpole Street, where Malcolm had broken down, as he had finally broken in that other life after the long hours of torture, and it seemed to her that the recapitulation had been done and from that moment the magic had begun.
She knew that Malcolm had shifted the level of consciousness, and was no longer aware of the room, but in a hypnoidal state; it was her part, controlling the rite, to remain steady on the physical plane, handling the forces. She gazed into the eyes that stared into hers with hypnotic intensity. The man's face did not seem like flesh and blood, but like an alabaster mask with the glittering eyes set in it; he was very much the priest and not in the least a man who has lost his head. He was not simply himself, getting what he wanted; he was a ritualist in a rite, representing something that was greater than he, representing all men whom life had wronged as it had wronged him, and in his own person magically breaking their bondage. That which he was experiencing, had, by the knowledge of this woman who was using him, been linked up with cosmic forces and thus made magical. What was happening was primitive, archaic, terrible, and yet it was holy, and as spiritual in its way as any of the theological virtues; it was the elemental foundation on which the structure of life was built, without which life could not exist, ignore it how we will; and she, a woman, had to acknowledge its validity.
She placed her hands on either side of the altar lamp, and he reached across and took her by the wrists, and she found herself gazing into those glittering, pale, expressionless eyes at close range. There was no escape now, Malcolm had got her, to do with her what he would, but between them was the sacred point of flame and the rising spire of incense smoke, and the rite was holy.
She had no fear, only a feeling of tremendous tension, and Malcolm, she could see, had neither doubts nor inhibitions. She knew, however, with her greater experience, that the magic had to be worked out on the astral, and that if it came through to the physical plane it
would, as magic, be short-circuited and spoilt. She wondered if Malcolm knew this, and realised that it was impossible he should know it with his conscious mind, but that, along with the memory of past incarnations, the knowledge might linger in his subconsciousness and give him guidance. And as the minutes went by and he made no move, she felt more and more certain that it was from the archaic levels he was working, and that archaic memories would guide the elemental energies that were rising within him.
And even as she watched, the mirror seemed to open and another world appeared. She and the priest working opposite her were vast forms of light, their feet in the dark chaotic deeps, their heads in starry space, between them the earth as an altar and their hands linked across it. Malcolm held her by the wrists, but not tightly, and she twisted her hands round inside his and grasped him by the wrists also, and so they stood while forces whirled about them. She was conscious of a rhythmical pulsation in space, and with one side of her mind she knew it was Malcolm's pulse-beats she was feeling, and with the other side she knew it to be the throb of the cosmic rhythm; also she knew that these things were not two things but one thing, and that the pulse of the man's blood was made one with primordial force.
Then it seemed to her that they rose in space till the altar of the earth no longer intervened between them; there was about them a haze of silver light, like a moonrise, and she knew that it was magnetism given off by Malcolm.
Then, on the plane of earth, she saw the etheric double of the man project from his physical form and stand before her, face to face; it drew nearer, she felt its silvery coldness, it began to coalesce with her. It was made one with her, absorbed. In the vision which they shared they hung in high space among the stars. It was as if she had mounted up on powerful wings, drawing the man with her like the nuptial flight of bees.
Then the tension relaxed, the power dropped, and they came swiftly back to earth again. She saw Malcolm holding on by the altar with both hands, the sweat dripping off his chin. Slowly his strength failed him, and he sank to his knees, holding on by one hand and covering his face with the other. She came round the altar, and took hold of him by the shoulders and supported him as he sank to the floor. For some minutes he rested in the attitude of the Dying Gladiator, and then his elbow gave way under him and he lay flat on the ground. She knew well enough that he was not dead, but any other person would have questioned whether life still remained in him.
Calmly she composed his limbs as if for burial, crossing his hands on his breast, and sat down beside his head and took it in her lap. She placed the flat of her palms on either side of his face, and sat as sit the Indian gods, and waited. The man hardly seemed to breathe. The woman seemed stabilised in strength. There was absolute silence in that secret room.
Slowly, gradually, she felt life flowing back into the body that rested against her knees. She knew that now Malcolm was sleeping and that with the dawn he would awake.
The hours went by, and there was no sound, no stir in the silent room. The incense had burnt itself out and the lamps were burning low. Then, at last, the faint sound of tugs hooting on the river outside penetrated the silence, and the man stirred slightly; but the woman still waited.
Malcolm sighed and shifted his position; then lay quiet again, but she knew that he was awake and aware of what had happened. She wondered whether or not he knew that his head rested on her knee. Then a pair of hands came up and covered hers that had held his head all night.
“You have shown me the way to the Door without a Key,” he said.
She did not reply, but answered him with a slight pressure of her fingers on his cheek. Stillness returned to the room, but it was a living stillness.
Finally the man spoke, but to earth once more.
“I can't stay like this indefinitely, can I, Lilith? I've got to bestir myself sometime. But it's a great effort. I've been out, I think, a very long way. And you, my dear? How is it with you?”
“It is well with me,” she replied, “for I have accomplished what was planned.”
“I felt you had,” he said, “and I'm not worrying about it.”
Slowly, reluctantly, he lifted himself to a sitting position and half turned and looked at the woman behind him, who, still seated like an Indian goddess, had not stirred.
“How is it with you?” he asked.
“It is well with me,” she replied again.
“It may be, but you've paid for it. You've paid the price of this night's work, Lilith.”
“So have you.”
“Oh yes, we've both paid. These things are bought with a price, I take it. I don't grudge it, and I don't suppose you do, either. You look as if you'd had a bad haemorrhage, Lilith; I've seen people after a major operation in better shape than you are. Let me look after you. I'm beginning to get my strength back to me with every minute that passes.
He rose, and coming round behind her where she sat, as she had sat all night, erect and unsupported, he put his arms round her.
“Lean back against me,” he said. She did as he bid her, smiling up at him. He looked down at her.
“My God, how you're changing,” he exclaimed. “You look so serene and lovely.”
“Life is coming back to me, too,” said she.
“I see it is. I have never seen anyone change so rapidly. You looked like your own mummy, Lilith, when I first woke up. Now you look like a young girl. I know you aren't, but that is how you look. A freshness, a kind of dewy freshness, like a flower.”
Presently she lifted her weight from his knee.
“I too must wake up,” she said. Reluctantly he released her and helped her to rise.
“I have had an experience,” said the man, “which I don't suppose can ever be repeated.”
“No, it can never be repeated,” replied the woman. “We have done the first part of that which we set out to do, and it is finished.”
“Consummatum est—turn down the empty glass,” said the man. “I know, I quite realise it. I am very glad you have succeeded, my dear, and I am very glad that I was able to help you.”
“God bless you, it has been a great experience. I wouldn't have missed it.”
Lilith looked steadily into his eyes without speaking for a moment. Then she spoke:
“I have to thank you. We have done what we set out to do. Something is present in the world that was not there before, and it will work itself out in its own way.”
“It is time I went, is it?”
Lilith hesitated, and turning away, stood watching the great mirror as if it opened on to another world and she were communing with that which moved therein. Malcolm had a momentary vision of stars moving through indigo deeps and rays of light that passed between. At length she turned and faced him, as if that with which she communed had given her counsel.
“I don't want you to be unhappy,” she said. The man did not reply, but stood silently gazing at her. In some indefinable way he seemed to have drawn apart and become remote, as if he had already severed his spirit from hers.
She turned away from him and gazed into the great mirror again, as if far vistas opened in the shadows, and as the man watched her she seemed to become vast, formless, primordial, like the rock-hewn woman of his dream. For a moment he thought she had vanished, dissolved into that cloudy shape. Then his eyes adjusted their focus and he recovered the hard outlines of reality. Yet it seemed different. The outlines were sharper, the colouring brighter than reality. It was as if Lilith were edged with light; her loose flowing draperies fell into the straight lines of sacerdotal robes and her head rose above them with a majesty that needed no crowned head-dress to make it royal and priestly.
“I have never belonged to any man, and never shall,” she said quietly, “though many men have known me. I have been called the Cosmic Harlot and the Ever-Virgin. Both are true of me, but you cannot be expected to understand that—to you I am the woman you love. And I love you, too, after my manner, but I am a priestess set apart, not altogether mortal. There are t
wo sides of me—the one that sits and sews and talks to you by the fireside, and the other that comes up here and works the rituals.
“I can give vour manhood fulfilment—more than you can dream or believe, even though you cannot possess me. I'd like to show you what a woman can be to a man. You deserve it. You've been starved so long.” An extraordinary animation came into her face and a wave of magnetism radiated from her. “I'd like to show you, Rupert, for I know—I know so much!”
The man stood silent.
“Do you remember the story of Eros and Psyche? That is a true story, Rupert, an exceedingly true story. Do you remember the conditions that Eros laid down? He would come to her by night, in the dark, and she must never see his face. She could hold Love in her arms, but she must not try to possess him. And that is how it is with us who are initiates. It is different with us from what it is with the once-born, for we belong in Another Place. We live in the Higher Self. To me, the person you know as Lilith Le Fay is only a little bit of myself. It is my persona, my mask, that I wear as the Greek actors wore theirs for the part they had to play in the sacred dramas. My personality is the mask I have made for myself for the part I have to play in this drama, which is also sacred. But you do not understand that, Rupert, because you live in your lower self; you do not know “the far voyaging soul.”
“You must take me on trust. We must each obey the laws of our own nature, you and I. No one can do otherwise and be true to themselves. You have got to live in this world, and I have got to live in two worlds, and this is the best I can offer you—I will mate with you after another manner—coming and going in my own way. I, who am all women, can minister to the manhood in you, and satisfy it, and more than satisfy it—take it up to the Godhead. Will that content you, Rupert?”
