Dark Arts

by Randolph Lalonde

  “I do swear,” Maxwell said.

  The sword tip was taken back and lowered. “I reveal to you the laws and beliefs that have determined our course through one thousand three hundred and thirteen years,” Samuel said. “There are five laws. All acts have a cost. Fear is the enemy. Secrecy is survival. We keep our own. Act for others first.”

  “Our beliefs are simple, but have shaken the pillars of society when proven to the innocent masses,” Susanne continued. “The realms of life are endless, to die is to discover a different life in a new realm. Our common patron on the other side are travellers, spirits who have lived many lives. No person bound to this life can know all the secrets of the next. This world is nearing the end of the seventh and final Age of Innocence. The Third Spiral are stewards of the natural order, protectors of creatures that are innocent of the true darkness in this world and the next, and we prepare for the coming of the High Days. Our ancestors were present for the Arrival of the Goddess, and the Rise of the Sun Prince. We will bear witness to the Opening Door and The Calling Of Light.”

  Maxwell knew all the legends she mentioned. The Arrival of the Goddess was a story he was told as a child, about a brother and sister who was lost in the woods. When night came, and they could hear beasts closing in on them, thirteen silver haired wolves surrounded them, and a woman with grey eyes guided them out of the woods. When they arrived at their village, the woman introduced six of the wolves to the people, and they became their guardians. The woman left with the remaining seven wolves, but three nights later a giant silver and black matron wolf joined the village. War with another village came the next season, and the wolves would not fight unless their territory was breached.

  When the decisive battle was fought, the men and women from the village the wolves protected were slain, leaving only a few at home for the wolves to protect. When the enemy came, they did so, and the neighboring tribe never intruded again. The few men and women left in the wolf village could not venture far to hunt because their neighbors were waiting for them, so they planted seeds instead. For decades, the wolves protected the territory, keeping fields of wheat and paddocks of other animals that sought the wolves protection safe so the small village eventually became a city, and when the neighboring hunter villagers sought trade, they were welcomed peacefully, but the wolves were ever watchful.

  The Rise of the Sun Prince was something Maxwell learned through his own reading. The older books he learned about it from told it like a history. A young slave was born in Ancient Egypt under a bright star, and three great harvests followed. When he became a man, he travelled from one slave camp to the next, preaching peace. His popularity grew, and it was said that he was a great magician, able to extend days, heal the sick and ease spirits back into their graves. The Pharaoh was unhappy to hear about this slave, because it was said that the villages thought that the preacher was more powerful.

  The preacher was in the desert, meditating and communing for three months during this time. When he returned, he saw that the slaves were mid-revolt with the Pharaoh, and thousands of lives were lost. Out of love for his people, he surrendered his power to the Pharaoh, and he broke the layman priest’s walking staff, then put him upon a stone to be flayed. He survived a vicious flaying, and died after three days of being tied to a flat stone. They cut the bonds, but did not let the slaves take the body.

  Another three days passed, and the layman priest returned to life, coming down from the stone he died on. He raised thirteen of his followers from the dead and visited numerous villages. Twenty-eight days passed, and the rumblings of rebellion were common amongst the slaves regardless of his message of peace. The layman priest confronted the Pharaoh again, who was deeply afraid. He handed the Pharaoh another walking staff, and invited him to break it, telling him that it would bring about a peace that would last the rest of his reign, and end the drought, but he would have to release any slave that wanted to follow him into the desert.

  The Pharaoh did so, and the staff shattered into hundreds of pieces. The layman priest announced that he was the Sun Prince, and that he was gifting the Pharaoh’s reign with abundance. He would take the followers he had risen to the desert along with all the slaves that were willing to come with him for the rest of his days. He would travel until he found his natural death, and his people would build a city upon his bones.

  The drought ended, and, hearing that the Sun Prince would travel the desert for a decade or longer, a surprising number of slaves remained to serve the Pharaoh. To demonstrate his thanks to the Sun Prince, the Pharaoh built an empty tomb where his history was recorded, and then named his firstborn son after him. For twenty-one years the Pharaoh Ra was said to have miraculous power, which he used to create a son and a daughter and to maintain a period of plenty. It was often said that the Sun Prince returned to visit Ra on his deathbed to forgive him, then to take his power back so Ra would be allowed to die. They both disappeared at the same time, ascending to Godhood.

  Maxwell had an idea that the Opening Door referred to the last breaking of the covenant, when another person would discover the secret of resurrection, then return to life themselves. The covenant between mankind and the divine, to keep the door between the mystical power and material laws closed, would be broken if the resurrected did not surrender the gift, allowing themselves to die, restoring the natural order. He hadn’t seen anything talking about specific predictions or prophecies though, he didn’t enjoy prophecy at all.

  The Calling of Light was completely new to him as an event, but he knew the Prometheus Manuscript well. He spent years fascinated with it and the implied attachment to the Sun Prince, who was able to access magic that seemed more fantasy than occult.

  “I ask you, Maxwell Percival Foster, do you swear to serve the Third Spiral, keeping its secrets and aiding our cause for the rest of your days and into the next existence?” asked Gladys.

  “I do swear,” Maxwell replied.

  The blindfold was removed and Maxwell was struck by a rush of memories. This was not the sensation of remembering something he’d forgotten, but of experiences that were blocked from his mind coming to him in sequence.

  The last year he spent with Miranda before she left for Italy was as clear as though it just happened. Handholding, spending hours playing music together. Finally, their first kiss, a perfect moment somewhere between the main house and the barn just after sundown. Recalling the cool air of twilight, his excitement and Maxwell’s overwhelming love for her made his head spin. His father almost caught them in the act, coming around the bend as their encounter was ending and grins that would last hours split the bottom halves of their faces.

  The seal between him and those memories were broken. His father put them there, and he understood at last. The weaver in him was a musician. That is how he understood the power between the incantations, the summoning of a being, and how those things affected the world. Seeing the power as though it was made of notes and understanding that there were harmonies to every ritual, spell, curse and especially between what one brings from the world beyond the physical was a revelation to Maxwell.

  If he and Miranda were allowed to continue a romance they were too young for, he would not have built a foundation for magic in music, and she would have been stunted as well. Would they have been more powerful together? That was a question they could answer by being together. His father truly was working in his best interest, giving him the knowledge to exist as a Magus, while his music provided the art he’d need to wield the power he would eventually have.

  Maxwell recalled discovering the opening to a cave blocked off by concrete and a steel door three times since then. Hidden in the forest, it was only a few hundred yards from the private beach. The last time he was taken there was at the beginning of his initiation ritual. After they blindfolded him, they guided him down the beach, then down a path in the forest, a path he was only just recalling. The way to the place he was seeing took him underground, then into the open night air. His m
emory of the journey to the present finally complete, Maxwell looked around himself to find the smiling faces of Samuel, Allen, Bernie, Scott, Gladys, Susan, and Miranda spaced around a circle etched on a stone floor. In the outer circle there were at least thirty people, most of whom he recognized as visitors who came to the farm from time to time as he was growing up.

  Etched in the stone floor were circles of different sizes, all meant for different high rituals. In the dim light he could see that the black stone that was so common in the area was shaped into a henge that surrounded everyone inside the inner and outer circles. The space was closed in by flat stone faces in all directions past the henge, even in the starlight it looked like someone had cut a large recessed circle for all other circles to be placed in.

  The space outside the circle had been decorated with wildflowers, cedar and oak leaves. There was movement on them, small things, some with their own inner light, using the decorations like rafts. Some were still, other small shadow and light bearing creatures moved from bloom to leaf, occasionally skipping through the air.

  They all remained outside the two main circles, like an audience of faeries who didn’t require protection or involvement. “Mother Maddock’s Little Visitors,” Maxwell said, naming the book he’d read and laughed at as a teenager. She claimed to have faeries in her garden, wrote about them and painted several who ‘would sit still long enough’ as she said.

  “You’re not the first to be surprised that she wasn’t mad,” Samuel said, amused. The Third Spiral is one of the few groups that are blessed with their protection, and our initiates are all able to open their minds enough to see a part of many different realms beyond our own. Some can only see the parts that are close to crossing into our reality, or overlap entirely, others, like you, Miranda and Bernie, will be able to see into other realms. Which ones, how far and when that gift will be under your control are questions that time will answer.”

  “We should get on with it?” Gladys reminded Samuel quietly.

  “Yes,” Samuel agreed. “Maxwell has stirred a spirit from the darkness. This being has embraced hate, and will only grow more powerful in its need to harm the living. You have the cunning, the knowledge and the power to face this spirit, and we want to know how you use those things without direction. Take what you need from your belongings and proceed.” Samuel said.

  Everyone inside the inner circle retreated to the ring of observers in the outer circle, leaving Maxwell alone with a short altar and the possessions he brought with him at his feet.

  He knelt down, put his amulet on, took the wood he collected, a rough spun piece of twine, and moved on to the altar. In addition to what he knew he would find there, the athame, dishes of oil, water, salt, and other ceremonial instruments, he found a small brazier of coals with three branding irons inside. He looked to Allen, who was the only person he knew who had similar brands, and recognized that the older man was trying to passively observe.

  Maxwell looked at the brands. One was a powerful protector against possession and curses, another was a symbol of channeling meant to increase the potency of the bearer’s will. The third was the mark of the conjurer, made for practitioners who summoned beings to perform tasks for them. He picked up a damp cloth from beside the brazier and considered which ones may help him. Maxwell knew he could do without all of the brands, but intended to have at least two of them tattooed later anyway. Using the brands set out for him and whoever else was going to use them in a sacred space, in that time would be much more potent.

  He chose the Silent Spirit circle, a match to Miranda’s Tattoo that protected against curses and spiritual possession and pressed it to his chest. Even though the lines of the glowing red-hot brand were fine and delicate, it was still incredibly painful at first, dulling after the first few seconds. The smell and sound of searing made it much worse. He removed it when Allen nodded at him.

  He put the iron back into the coals and couldn’t help but smirk at Miranda, who was wide eyed and cringing as he picked up the more complex second brand: The Invoker’s Seal, meant to assist him in projecting his will. With a wink in her direction he pressed the red-hot end beside the first brand. The pain wasn’t as bad as the first time, but his body reacted to the abuse by sweating profusely. By the time he put the second brand back in the brazier drops ran down the middle of his back. He did not need the third brand at all, and no one seemed surprised when he turned his back on it.

  Marking one of the man-sized circles carved onto the stone at his feet with a bit of bark, Maxwell took a step back so the altar was behind him. There was no need for him to summon his opponent using words or announcements. Instead he closed his eyes and imagined the defiled chapel in his mind as it appeared in his dream, with wooden walls that were the color of yellowing bone, and a pastor in its doorway that seemed to be at one with his shadow.

  Imagining the False Pastor inside the circle was easy, the mental picture formed as though the being was eager to appear. Maxwell raised his hand, fingers splayed out across the star scape above and focused, shutting the world around him out. Faces of rotting children filled his mind, they clung to the black woolen robes of the False Pastor, and Maxwell recognized them for what they were: an extension of the Pastor’s will, tools he used to frighten people who he had latched on to over the years. They only ever existed in the phantasm’s imagination. With a thought, Maxwell was able to see past them in his mind’s eye, and look directly into the eyes of the Pastor, grey and cold as they were. He lowered his hand and directed it at the circle he’d marked.

  When Maxwell opened his eyes to look upon the False Pastor, he was already sure he would see him there. A few of the onlookers gasped at the appearance of a grey man surrounded by a black shadow-mist. “A wordless summoning,” someone whispered.

  “I bind you with tools you know,” Maxwell said, presenting a thick sliver of oak he gathered from a crossroads tree near the fallen chapel. The Fallen Pastor sneered and loomed, trying to press past the barrier drawn on the stone. With great care, Maxwell looped the tiny noose he’d made of twine around the piece of wood and looked up at his opponent, smiling.

  The face of the Pastor stretched long, it’s pale visage staring on in shock and horror as Maxwell pulled the tiny noose tight. A rough rope closed around the neck of the False Pastor and hauled him up abruptly. The spirit clawed at the rope and Maxwell could feel all the frustration he had at being rendered powerless by the creature well up in him. It was not the time to follow that emotion. “You are bound,” he growled before taking a deep breath in and letting his anger out with a long exhale.

  Slowly he knelt and put the piece of wood, along with the noose tied around it on the stone at his feet and left it there as he stood again. The choking and struggling sounds filled the space, and the False Pastor kicked, clawed at the rope and made desperate gestures to the observers. “No one here pities who you are,” Maxwell said. “They pity the child you once were, as we were all innocent once, beings of potential and light.”

  The False Pastor fixed his eyes on Maxwell and fought the rope furiously, no longer flailing, but straining, his hands reaching as far as they may, striking the edge of the circle boundary carved around him. “You are damned, Weaver!” he screamed hoarsely.

  “I’m starting to reconsider that pity, spirit,” Maxwell said, cocking his head. He took the blade his forefather made, unsheathed it and faced the False Pastor. “I am your deliverer. Look up, lost one, and find your path.”

  “Demons, the dark flame, the road of pain,” the False Pastor said as he looked to the stars.

  “They have come in response to what you are.” Maxwell held the knife over his head and closed his eyes. “I call into the light, the Glade everlasting, I ask if there is any who would protect this spirit.”

  Maxwell could feel the fear from the bound spirit in the circle. Even if the False Pastor was completely evil, there was still something within him that feared his fate. There was no sign that relief was coming, and
Maxwell waited as long as he felt he could, then longer. This was the true test, the act of it was easy, and he had done everything correctly and was in a place of great power. He hated the False Pastor enough to send him directly to the Pit, but doing so in a sacred space when there may be another option would make him seem vengeful and severe to everyone who was gathered there.

  The words of his father came to him then, a recollection from his encounter at the crossroads; “Do what feels right, watch your back,” and Maxwell knew exactly what to do. “No one’s coming to save you, Pastor,” he told the spirit. Without a moment’s hesitation, he lightly kicked the piece of wood with the twine noose wrapped round it into the False Pastor’s circle, then stepped inside with the spirit.

  He felt his heart skip a beat as the False Pastor tried to possess him and failed, then the tug on his amulet as he attempted to dig his hands into his chest. Maxwell raised the knife. “I release you to the realms beyond our material plane,” he reached out, expecting to feel nothing but air, but grabbed the cold, fleshy throat of the Pastor instead. He squeezed and looked into the cold eyes of the shocked being. “I banish you for all time, and release you to wander.” With a flick of his blade, the noose that held the False Pastor aloft was cut.

  The dark spirit screamed, the pitch was ear-piercing as he drifted up and out of sight. Maxwell could feel that it was utterly gone, even the memory of standing inside the circle with the thing was already something he found easy to doubt.

  Susan, Samuel and Gladys returned to the inner circle, smiling. “You chose the method that does the most good. The spirit will never be able to return unless it is brought into this world by the living. If it is summoned you will know where it appears, and who is responsible.” Susan said. “You have demonstrated the skills of a Weaver.”