Time Knot

by M. C. Morison

  “I know,” said the boy, “splash blood on each of the stones.”

  Håkan closed his eyes. He’d seen many chickens killed and twisted the necks of several himself. All boys raised on farms did that. But this killing nauseated him.

  ‘Open your eyes.’

  He did so and looked up at Shoshan.

  ‘Now you see what’s happening,’ said the young priestess with words that floated into his mind.

  He nodded.

  ‘This is a sacred circle and they are desecrating it. It must be purified. There is one close to you who knows how and it must be done tomorrow. Look again.’

  He did, and from somewhere high above the circle he could see three figures riding fast towards the bridge back to town. In his nostrils he sensed the smell of rotting flesh.

  ‘But how—’

  Shoshan had removed her hand from his shoulder and the words echoed around his own mind. He opened his eyes once more and could see the quivering flame of the small night-light in his own bedroom. He’d been dreaming and already the dream had started to slip from his grasp. He needed to pee and reached out for the pot by the bed.

  ‘Don’t forget!’

  A voice – a girl’s firm voice – sounded in the room. Håkan nearly wet himself. He searched the shadows. Lennart’s bed lay flat and empty. No one was in the room except for Charcoal, and he doubted the sleeping cat had spoken to him. Then with puke threatening to erupt from inside him he remembered. Everything.

  He got down on his knees and prayed. The devil had clearly been at work. Either here or at the Judge Circle. He would check in the morning and decide what to do.

  A Rare Gift

  Gregor led out the two horses with embroidered blankets and light saddles.

  “Are you sure you don’t wish me to accompany you, Mistress Signy? In this snow we could take the sleigh.”

  “No, thank you, Gregor. Håkan and I will go with our dear friend Paracelsus. He’s interested in seeing Torsberg and our Judge Circle.”

  Gregor dropped his eyes and nodded. He sniffed and then searched the sky. The clouds, a mottled panoply of pale greys, pressed down on them.

  “Could turn nasty if the wind gets up as well. Will you be warm enough?”

  This last question came Håkan’s way.

  “This coat keeps out all the cold, thank you, Gregor,” Håkan responded. “And we won’t be that long.”

  Gregor nodded again, offered a salute and went back into the stables.

  As Signy ducked under the courtyard arch she murmured, “He didn’t believe us, but there it is. Gregor is totally trustworthy, a virtue I’m not sure is shared by Inge.”

  Håkan had seen Inge peeking through a crack made by the partially open kitchen door. He smiled at his mother.

  “If she knew the full story I doubt she would stay for a minute longer. It is beyond belief, truly, and strange indeed that Paracelsus is with us at this time.”

  That morning, after they had broken their fast, Håkan said he must talk with his mother. She had insisted they did so in the dispensary, where the herbs were prepared. She had work she must complete. When Håkan arrived he found the big German sitting there, well wrapped against the cold.

  “I want our friend to hear what you have to say, Håkan.”

  “But—”

  “He will be able to help,” said his mother, in a tone of finality.

  After a few stumbling starts, Håkan described his dream from the night before. He started with following the wolf to the circle, but when questioned further he admitted the vision of the strange young priestess and the stone chair. The two adults listened in complete silence, punctuated with some short questions. They made no comment until Håkan had finished.

  Signy stood up, walked the length of the room and then back again. She looked at their guest.

  “It’s as I thought. The time has come, though quite what we’re to do I am not sure.”

  Paracelsus pointed his finger at Håkan.

  “You have a rare gift, boy. The power to see as you see is vanishing. I have the gift in my own way as does your mother, but to travel as you have…” He stuck out his lower lip and sighed. “To travel like that…”

  “Well, that is your Sami blood, I think, Håkan,” said his mother, finishing Paracelsus’s sentence. “And it ties in with the drum picture I received at your birth. I showed that to our friend last night. And now you tell us our beautiful Circle is spoiled and must be put right.”

  They’d decided they should leave as soon as they were able. Paracelsus had to ride to town and said he would meet them at the bridge two hours beyond noon. Normally the town’s church bells carried as far as the farmstead, but with the wind from the west they had estimated the time and hoped the German would not have been waiting too long.

  He waved when they came in sight. As they drew close Håkan noticed Paracelsus wore his sword once more. He had saddlebags just like Signy. Both contained substances to purify the Circle, Håkan assumed. A sled was attached to his horse by two strong cords; it had a stack of neatly chopped firewood bound to it, sprinkled with a light frosting of snow.

  “You ride well, boy,” said the German, drawing alongside Håkan.

  “I’ve ridden since I was a sprat,” said Håkan. “Just wait a moment. Wait here, please.”

  He cantered ahead for some distance along the path and then turned his horse. He knew his pride had taken hold but he went ahead anyway. Keeping it at a steady trot, he eased his feet out of his stirrups, and taking a firm hold of the front edge of the leather saddle, tipped his head and torso forward at the same time as he raised his legs. Moments later he rode past his mother and Paracelsus doing a handstand on the top of the horse.

  Håkan jumped down, never letting go of the saddle and jumped back again, riding up to his audience and struggling not to grin.

  “A tumbler? That’s quite a trick, lad. There’s many a Cossack on the Russian plains who would be happy to be able to do that!”

  “Håkan’s been impossible since we had a group of travelling entertainers come and stay. They also had arcane knowledge of healing and I made them welcome. They rewarded me by turning my son into a village square juggler.”

  Paracelsus raised both arms above his head.

  “Bravo. Bravo. It takes courage to do what you have done, boy, and you’ve been given an angel’s gift, I think, when it comes to the juggler’s art. Your mother says you play the pipes as well.”

  “I do,” said Håkan.

  “Well I hope you have brought them with you. Music through a wind instrument has a powerful effect on the bogles and sprites we’ll be up against.”

  “We are lucky you were here, Paracelsus.”

  “Luck is never part of it when the wicked practitioners of the dark and forbidden arts are abroad. Too many folk doubt the reality of what they do and think a few bells and holy water will do the trick. But they’re dangerously naïve. They think they know it all with their psalters and shaved pates. But they know nothing of those who dwell invisibly and balefully. I do. And we will open once more this sacred gate, or my visit has been in vain.”

  They took a longer route than normal towards the stone circle, to prevent the sled with its cargo of chopped timber from becoming snagged. Signy led the way and Håkan came last, taking care to avoid his dark-brown horse putting one of its white-socked forelegs on the wood. Paracelsus held up his arm and called, “Mistress Signy.” Håkan’s mother stopped and turned. The German beckoned to Håkan, who came up alongside.

  “Do you feel that?” he asked.

  A Gateway to Hell

  Håkan could feel the cold and the slight chill of the breeze on his cheeks. His ears, encased by the woollen flaps of his hat, picked up nothing out of the ordinary. Paracelsus kept looking at him. Håkan looked through the trees in the direction of the Judge Circle. A dank, dark void pressed in on his chest. Fear, unbidden, rippled through his limbs. The surrounding trees and the other two riders were close b
y and far away all at the same time. Despair, doubt and great tiredness crept over him.

  “Yes,” said Paracelsus, “that is it. Now you must banish this foul river of devil’s bile. For we must draw closer but not become submerged into what’s been invited here.”

  He leant over and grasped Håkan’s shoulder with his gloved hand.

  “Always remember you have your own angel wherever you go. That angel and all it rules is your certain protection at times like this. It is a flame of the Fire of God and an Eternal Benediction of the living Christ. Call on it within and it will choose to be with you. You cannot command your angel but when freely invited it will choose to guide and protect. Just will it from the purity of your own blessed soul and it will make its presence known. For no prayer goes unanswered. Ever.”

  Håkan had never heard of his own angel before and looked towards his mother. She sat motionless on her grey mare, her lips moving silently. Håkan spoke in words of silence as best he could to his feathered friend. A wind passed through the branches above their heads and a spattering of snow fell around them. The tight band that had constricted his chest eased and the feeling that he’d gone far away and couldn’t breathe gradually dissipated.

  “Look.” The German doctor pointed upwards. “Can you see?”

  Håkan raised his eyes. The bare snow-topped limbs of the birch trees spread like branching rivers of wood against the dull glow of the sky. The marbled clouds, drab and snow-heavy, formed a motionless canopy high above. But beneath these clouds and within the confines of the spidering twigs of the trees, something danced. When he looked, nothing showed itself. But when he didn’t look, Håkan saw, or felt he saw, movement, as though a greater intensity of air formed itself and swirled about them. This intensity had the playfulness of a squirrel combined with the insubstantiality of steam as it vanishes into the air around it.

  “The air’s alive.”

  “Yes, boy. That is so. And at one time all knew it, all country folk could see it. But now the doctors in their universities, taking their fat rewards and sitting on their fat … sorry, Mistress Signy. Now the doctors deny the reality of the sylphs of the air. But when we three call on our angels the sylphs dance and sing and cavort, for it is their pleasure also to be wafted by an angel’s wings. And today we must invite the sylphs, the flaming spirits of the fire, the glittering denizens of the earth and the flowing undines of the water, to work with us in driving out this abomination invited last night by your Swedish neighbours. And you will be the leader of the sylphs, Håkan, when you encircle thrice the stones and charm them with your pipes.”

  At that he clicked his tongue and his horse started forward. A few moments later they could see Torsberg rising above the trees. They approached the stone circle from the southern end furthest from the farmstead. Paracelsus said, “Wait” and released the cords holding the sled of wood. He rode slowly forward. Some fifteen paces from the stones, his horse reached where Håkan had seen the three riders in his nighttime vision. Paracelsus unsheathed his sword and held it by the blade, the handle and handle-guard forming a cross. He lifted it high above his head and rode in a slow circle before returning to his companions.

  “It is worse than I thought.” He hawked and spat. “The one who wove this spell, who invited the dire and the dreadful into this sacred confine knew what he was about.”

  At that point his horse passed wind.

  Paracelsus grinned. “Exactly, Thomas, exactly. You always doubt the power of evil and so do I. The devil and all his works meets his match when he meets Bombast Theophrastus Paracelsus! Right. We must make a start. Watch without watching, Håkan. You may see or know things that are and are not at the same time. To believe them is to give them power and it is power they will take in less time than it takes to sneeze. But watch sideways and learn. The forces we will banish from here are but delusions who think they are real, conjured from the absolute nothingness of darkness and folly. We’re more than a match and we’ll start with you. Dismount and take to your pipes, young sirrah! But first we must protect ourselves with the salamanders of fire.”

  Paracelsus kept talking as they prepared a fire about twenty paces from where the circle started. Having cleared the soft snow with cut branches from a nearby bush and used their gloved hands to scrape the icy remnants from the tufts of grass, they placed logs in a triangle and used the space between for the kindling that Signy produced from one of her saddlebags. When prepared, Paracelsus stood facing the fire and the gaunt hill beyond the circle and opened his tinderbox. As he sought to get a spark it span out of his hands and tumbled into the snow. A twitch of fear travelled across his face. He stooped to pick up the box and gather its contents.

  “It’s all right, my friend,” said Signy, “I also brought a tinderbox.” She collected it from the same saddlebag that held the kindling and passed it to the German doctor.

  “I’ll take off my gloves this time,” he said, “and not underestimate the sorcery that’s been done here.”

  Moments later the fire surged up and he added more kindling. In a few minutes flames flickered and roared as the dry wood caught and burned bright. A spot of cold snow settled on Håkan’s cheeks.

  “We must make speed,” said Signy, looking up at the sky. A few wisps of snow drifted downwards like orphans from the clouds above.

  Paracelsus directed them to make a second fire ten paces to the right of the first, in order to melt snow in a pot that Signy had brought for the purpose. To this she added small pinches of crushed herbs. Paracelsus walked over to this bubbling brew, but his back masked what he did next. Håkan looked over to the Judge Circle. Dark stains dribbled down the purity of the stones. Blood spots lay like old wounds on the scuffed and trampled snow inside. Something lay at the foot of the stone nearest Torsberg. Håkan struggled to see what it was. Surely not an animal hidden beneath the snow, its head just… Then the dark dreadfulness oppressed his chest once again. A band tightened all around him and he found breath hard to come by. The stones of the circle had become as the teeth of a giant maw. A gateway to hell itself. Light disappeared into this abysmal hole and eyes watched Håkan, unblinking. On the rock closest to him, shimmering malevolently, sat a silvery polecat. Its size kept changing and its form rippled.

  From far, far away a thought pushed into the last dry corner of his conscious mind as he sank into the cold, dark waters of a freezing bog. “Watch sideways, High-Born Son, watch sideways.”

  He gasped a breath. In the darkness swirling within the tooth-like rocks, a deeper darkness formed itself into a massive dog, a hellhound of dread and doom. Its eyes, dull red emanations of chilling fire, sought to find him and freeze him.

  A thought settled in his mind like one of the wisps of snow; the thought of his angel. He let it spread through his mind. Great wings unfurled around him. With a howl fit to crack a mountain in two, the growling dog withdrew to the far edge of the circle. The silvery cat washed itself and winked at him.

  Something sputtered nearby.

  “There,” said the German. “That will help.”

  Steam rose from the pot, and a fragrance reached Håkan, so pure, so tender, and so sublime it might not be of this world.

  “Come. Inhale,” said Paracelsus. “This will help and protect.”

  And so it did. When Håkan next looked at the circle of stones they had lost the appearance of an ancient curse. The blood and severed goat’s head still desecrated the space, but the constricting darkness had lifted, at least a bit.

  Watch sideways.

  Håkan took up his pipes and blew to fill up the cloth bag. The drone sounded its buzzing note and with the pipes Håkan picked out a simple melody of light and laughter. His feet carried him without effort around the stone circle once, then twice, then thrice. Something in the aroma made by his mother and the strange doctor had certainly helped. When he completed the third circuit he glanced towards the top of Torsberg. There, next to the hammerhead rock, sat a wolf silhouetted against the sky. Håkan
turned to his mother and Paracelsus.

  “Look.”

  They looked at him.

  “No. On the hill top.”

  But it had gone.

  “That was just for you,” said his mother, when Håkan told them of the wolf.

  Paracelsus collected ash from the fire in a separate pot, and holding it carefully in cupped gloved hands entered the circle. He muttered Latin words that Håkan could not make out clearly. At each quarter of the circle the doctor stopped and traced out a simple device in the snow, by pouring hot ashes. At the northern end he picked up and threw out the head of the poor goat. When he returned to the south he put down the pot as though it held precious and delicate treasure rather than smouldering ashes. He drew his sword and walked three decisive paces towards the centre of the circle. He plunged the sword, using both hands on the hilt, deep into the snow and soil beneath. Then, standing to one side, he unscrewed the pommel of the sword and walked slowly, with head bowed, to the centre of the circle. Once there he shook the pommel three times each, in three directions. A drop of some liquid flashed as it curved towards the snow. For a brief moment sunlight broke through the clouds and the snow-blessed top of Torsberg glittered with light.

  Paracelsus left the Judge Circle with his sword and carefully screwed back the pommel.

  “It is done.”

  “It certainly is,” said Signy. “Just look.”

  Snow had started to fall heavily, quickly obliterating the footprints within and around the standing stones. Right in the middle of the circle stood a boy, dressed in a short tunic and wearing light sandals that strapped up his calves. He stared at them and swung round, taking a pace behind him. He stopped, rubbed his eyes, looked up and slowly turned back to face them.

  Soup in the Sleeping Room

  I couldn’t stop shivering. The great chunk of hollowed-out bread, served with a thick, hot stew, had helped but hadn’t fully done the trick. In truth, what had happened when I went into the bathroom expecting to be sick had scared me nearly witless. One moment I was about to throw up and the next I was standing in snow, surrounded by dark-grey obelisks of stone with three strangers staring at me from beyond a fire.