Bride of the Stone: Circle of Nine Trilogy 2

by Josephine Pennicott

  He sat outside the compound, dismissing the beggars with a wave of his hand, smoking Indian cigarettes and drinking chai. A realisation had made his blood feel cold despite the fiery sun: perhaps there were no solutions here or anywhere. Perhaps his quest was futile. There were no gurus or evolved masters who would manifest to help him. Depression stood behind him, swooping him into her voluminous cloak. A child watched him shyly from across the dusty road. She held a bunch of speckled white bananas in her hand.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When the hag appeared at Larry’s door to summon him to return to Ashbud’s presence, it was no great surprise. He had been expecting it since he had last seen the guru and witnessed the white wolf that lurked behind his eyes, the hunger waiting to pounce.

  The air was thick around him, the compound deserted, as he followed the hag’s flowing black robes. Leaves blew around his face, whipped by a fierce, savage wind. Birds flew in formation in the shimmering Indian sky, uttering harsh cries. There was a storm brewing in the air, and Larry longed for it. He craved for the oppressive heat to burst. His head felt as if it were going to split in two. Strange tensions inside him threatened to claw their way out, leaving him an empty shell, spent, lifeless. He just longed for this interview with Ashbud to be over.

  Green coconuts lay on the ground. His shadow fell onto the dry, arid earth. It appeared to have wings. Larry knew it had to be a trick of the light.

  Seated in front of him, Larry stared up at Ashbud. He could feel the other man’s power enveloping him. He saw himself through Ashbud’s eyes. Christlike, passive blue eyes blazing with hunger. Starving for personal knowledge, for power. He felt his ego shift inside him, a hard dark green mass, threatening to push up into his throat, choking him. His ego, dark and long like seaweed, smelt rotten.

  ‘Heztarra Galaxy,’ Ashbud said, pointing at him. ‘One of the Fallen Ones.’ He laughed. ‘Fallen a long fucking way to end up on Earth.’

  Larry frowned, his suspicions roused as to Ashbud’s state of mind.

  Ashbud moved his hand in the air with a huge grin on his face, and a small golden locket appeared. He tossed it carelessly to Larry. ‘Photo of Ashbud inside, carry it always, it will protect you.’ Larry thanked him as he pocketed it, perspiring heavily. The tension in the room had become palpable. When will it rain? Why the hell doesn’t it rain?

  Ashbud smiled again, his hand moving his green silk lungi up from his legs, slowly. ‘Ashbud give gift to Fallen One. Now Fallen One give gift to Ashbud. Suck Ashbud’s nectar.’ With disbelief Larry watched as the green silk moved slowly aside to reveal the guru’s erect penis. His heart felt hollow inside his ribs. There was a sensation of ash falling onto his upturned face as he crawled slowly towards the guru’s throne.

  From outside the room, he heard the distant sounds of thunder, and the first drops of longed-for rain began to fall.

  Later that night, the shit really hit the fan. Anna had had an attack of the guilts about screwing him and, in a touching moment, had confessed their affair to Kath. Larry was thankful he hadn’t witnessed it. He had returned to their small room to find a weeping, raging pregnant woman, with no interest in listening to his excuses. There were no excuses. He felt drained, bewildered, watching her as she screamed at him, feeling oddly detached from the whole scene, half amused at the lengths she was working herself up to, but also disgusted at himself for not being more straight with her. After two hours of hysterical questionings, all she could gasp out was, ‘Ashbud will help us, Larry! We have to pray to Swami. We have to ask his help.’

  It was too much for him. He knew the words were a mistake, but they fell like poisonous toads from his lips anyway. ‘Ashbud can’t help us, Kath. I’ve just spent the last hour in a personal interview with him, sucking his cock. He’s probably got all the men of this compound servicing Swami to get divine grace.’

  Kath went white. Her entire soul blazed at him from her eyes. For a split second she was in denial, but then she started to shake, and he saw with regret that she recognised the truth. Too late to take back the words, they had fallen into her hands and had already flowered a new destiny for them both.

  In the morning, she was gone. She had stolen out in the night, taking his child with her. His remorse had been intense and brutal. Nobody at the ashram could give him any information on her whereabouts; they closed ranks against him, and why wouldn’t they? he reasoned. No-one in the ashram wanted to associate with a sick pervert who claimed to be giving their divine master blow jobs behind closed doors.

  He packed his few clothes and quietly left. The huge gates to the ashram closed behind him. He looked for a second at the compound, with its hundreds of devotees gathered on the lawn, most of them dressed in white, ready for Swami’s evening darshan. The armed guards stared at him with hatred in their eyes, their fingers always ready on their rifles. He began walking down the long dusty road, not knowing where he was going. He knew he would never return.

  He became lost in southern India, looking for Kath. He showed her photograph around at every cheap backpacker ashram and hotel that he stayed in. No result. He travelled to Goa and wandered the palm-fringed beaches, calling to her, memories mocking him.

  Every day he picked his way among beaches of Kajasthani and Tibetan craft-sellers, hippies looking for Woodstock, naked European women, drooling Indian men and scores of Western tourists in various stages of health, attempting to build up their immune systems in this Indian paradise of soft white sands and warm turquoise waters.

  Despite the fresh fish and salads in Goa, he became sick again from the food and had little strength, collapsing in the street and relying on the kindness of Indian strangers. In a dream an orange Sadhu appeared, with long flowing dark hair and a large white dot on his forehead. He smiled at Larry and told him to leave Goa immediately and travel to the Ellora caves near Arrangabaud.

  Filled with hope, Larry went to Bombay and caught a crowded Indian bus, filled with more chickens than people, that took him to the ancient rock carvings of Ellora, almost beside himself with hope that Kath would be there. He toured the sculptures all day, unable to appreciate the dramatic spectacle of the cave temples. Even though it was one of the most extraordinary places he had ever seen, he just longed for Kath. At the end of the day, when he was close to tears and nervous collapse, he heard a whisper in his head: Women were not welcomed here, the monks were above the body, and a lot of miracles happened. Then he saw the Sadhu of his dream approaching him, pushing his way through the crowd of German tourists, who stepped back.

  Larry could feel the Sadhu’s energy hitting him like an electric charge. He stood with his mouth hanging open as the man approached. The Sadhu had the bluest eyes Larry had ever seen. He was enormously tall. He regarded Larry with total acceptance radiating in his eyes. A hint of amusement flickered across his calm features.

  ‘Go home to your country,’ he said. ‘It is over.’ Larry nodded slowly, mesmerised by his beauty. The Sadhu smiled and turned his back, walking briskly through the tourists, all of whom parted quickly for him, staring after him with the same dazed expression that was on Larry’s face. Even the breeze appeared to sigh in yearning for the shining one who walked among them.

  *

  Larry had not discovered what happened to Kath.

  Flying back to Australia, he imagined that she had also flown back to Sydney to have their baby in familiar surroundings. He dreaded the reception he would receive from her parents. The reality was a gut-wrenching shock. She had not returned, she had simply vanished, and her parents were out of their minds with worry.

  The following six months were among the worst that Larry had ever endured. Kath’s bitter and frightened parents accused him of everything from murder to callous abandonment. He faced countless interviews with police. Private investigators followed him during the day, and his nights were endless as he lay awake, staring at the ceiling and trying to feel where Kath and his child were. She was not dead — he hoped for that with every fi
bre of his being. She was out there, but he could not imagine why she would not return home. She had loved her parents, she would never cause them undue worry.

  Her parents had flown to India a couple of times, attempting to trace her, but there were no leads. Kath had simply vanished into air. Some nights he doubted that she had ever really been there.

  But India had changed him. The incident with Ashbud had awakened something inside him. His demons, his angels. His entire body would twist in the night, sweat pouring from him, a grey-gold light pulsating around him. He would see thought patterns everywhere he looked, and at times he was afraid they were going to drive him insane. Grey, hunched-over demon-like beings, they cowered in corners, or attached themselves to their original thinkers, the unknowing creators who had birthed these dark shadows with their thoughts. There were times he was filled with despair for the world.

  Many nights he walked the city streets, his black coat flapping in the breeze, seeing sights that would be inconceivable by day. Phantoms floated, wraith-like, along tarmac roads, a corpse played a violin in the city mall, and a white horse with staring eyes, dead for decades, pulled a coach along the road. Whispers of a time long gone, but still recorded in the ether, so he was able to visualise it.

  As he walked he would look for signs of light. He longed to see his Sadhu again, but all he saw were white empty thought patterns, staring through him, repeating tasks that they would never complete.

  Larry’s loneliness threatened to devour him at times. It was like a shaggy, white, starving wolf, always running beside him. He welcomed the wolf, it was his punishment for what he had inflicted on Kath, his punishment for even being born.

  For a few nights he was joined by a ghostly image of a little girl, walking quietly beside him as if guarding him. Her hand was cold when she slipped it into his, her eyes were large and vacant of hope. He pretended that his presence gave her some comfort. He knew her to be a child of the undead, and he had no idea why she desired his company, his warm touch. But, like a large unsteady moth, she would float to him, her lace dress covered in blood and dirt, her dead eyes restlessly looking around her. They would walk together, his footsteps clanging in the streets of the night.

  ‘Be still!’ she would hiss through lips that were blue, and her yellow eyes would blaze. ‘The night turns to day, to dust, to memory. Rachel will walk with you and mend a scar. We are all lost, always doomed. Be Rachel’s friend and she will fashion you a dream made of black night. We are all afraid, in pain. But be Rachel’s friend and she will take you into her mouth and birth you in flame to live a new day. Yes, the night is empty of light, but little Rachel is here to bend the silence.’ If he turned to question the child from a nightmare, her hands and face would turn to ice, to frost, to air. She would vanish quietly, taking more of his sanity with her.

  He was inside a temple. Thousands of white candles blazed, and the scent of jasmine and myrrh permeated the air. He looked at the paintings of Jesus in the Stations of the Cross. Jesus was suffering, his face creased in pain, muscles bulging. Blood dripped from beneath his crown of thorns. A dove flew upwards in the church, startling him. He sensed the great rats that lived beneath the floorboards of this house of worship, and he became afraid. Slowly he approached the altar. A woman knelt with her back to him, praying. He was uneasy about interrupting her prayer. She turned to face him. It was Kath.

  ‘You were never meant for this world,’ she whispered. Her stomach was covered by a dark red ugly stain. Remorse swept over him, and he covered his eyes in shame. When he opened them again, she was gone, vanished into the ether. In her place sat Ashbud, laughing, pulling his sari up, his mouth working as he grabbed his cock, demanding that Larry go on his knees before him. Larry began to sob. ‘How could you!’ he heard himself exclaiming. ‘Not in his house!’

  Behind Ashbud rose an angel, a being of radiant light. His hair hung in silver-white curls to his waist. He wore a breastplate of gold and, beneath the breastplate, a red jumper fashioned of roses. His face threatened to crack Larry’s heart — it was so beautiful, so full of yearning. A long scar covered both his arms. Ashbud, oblivious to his presence, was pleasuring himself, laughing maniacally. The angel held out his hands to Larry. In his eyes was an infinite sadness. ‘You will be called when the time is right, Lazariel, my brother,’ he said. Larry felt a part of himself shrivel and die before his gaze.

  A dark being, the size of a small dog, dropped out of his body and flew to the angel, entering its light body. The masturbating Ashbud dematerialised with a sickening deflation of air. Larry knew the thought pattern that had exited his body was connected with the Indian guru. Nothing mattered any more, his loneliness, his guilt over Kath. All that he could perceive was the angel. There was no longer any church, no longer any Ashbud. When he awoke, he had cried aloud in pain and anger that the dream had ended.

  From that night, Larry was dead. He renamed himself Lazariel, and his new life had begun.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  From the eyes of the wind I fly to thee on breezes that are tongues of fire

  The past — a shadow, longing, misery, reborn, I’m baptised to my desire

  — Graffiti painted on the Temple of Forbidden Pleasure, New Baffin

  Dirty Ugly Virgin

  Tending to her stone;

  No normal man will peg you,

  Ye’ll always be alone.

  Smelly stinking virgin,

  Winskis don’t forget!

  No man to make you moan and cry

  A stone is all you get!

  — Winski song

  ‘Maya! Maya! Oh heavens! Where is that child now? Maya!’

  Maya flattened herself against the Bwani stone, laughing. Ellie-Jane, her Bluite nanny and friend, paused with her hands on her hips, looking around. Maya was near, she could smell her. ‘Maya! It’s time to return to the Hollow Hills! Come on, Maya, please don’t leave me!’

  Ellie-Jane began to feel afraid, and she cursed Maya under her breath. She should have guessed that if she gave in to her demands to explore the world of Eronth that existed above the subterranean world of the Hollow Hills, Maya would embrace some form of mischief. She was as bad as the Winskis when it came to tormenting, Ellie-Jane thought sourly, and, despite the fact that she must be at least sixteen (or was it thirteen summers? Ellie-Jane had long lost count), she showed no sign of settling down to a more orderly life in the Hills.

  Now Ellie-Jane looked around fearfully, dreading the appearance of the bestial Solumbi, who were often responsible for mysterious disappearances in the Hollow Hills of Eronth. Ellie-Jane also dreaded Diomonna’s wrath if she should go flying past on her ragwort stem and catch Maya and Ellie-Jane in the Overlands! At this thought, Ellie-Jane’s heart spasmed. ‘Maya!’ she called out again. Her voice cracked with fear. ‘Please, Maya! Let’s go back! I’m sure I hear the bell-ringers calling us for supper!’

  She could too, if she strained, just hear a tiny silvery bell sound from the Hills. Her voice seemed to float away into the air. There was silence, although the Circle of Nine stones appeared to be listening intently. A sob caught in Ellie-Jane’s throat. No! She told herself. Don’t cry in front of her again! She’s out there, I know, listening! She spun around in a circle, eyes scanning every tree, every boulder. ‘Maya?’

  Ellie-Jane had been abducted by the Imomm Faery tribe many years before, too many years for her to clearly keep count. Time was difficult to hold in your mind when you were an occupant of the Hollow Hills; it vanished as quickly as dreams in morning air. She had been a Registered Nurse in her distant life back on Earth, and her shock and terror had been great when the Imomm had captured her to aid in rearing Maya. The brunette little girl and Ellie-Jane had grown together; Maya into a stunning young dark-haired beauty and Ellie-Jane — well, the Bluite had come to sadly accept that she was no great belle, and worse still, it no longer mattered, for no male Bluites had survived the shock of the crossing into the Hollow Hills.

  There were time
s when memories shimmered tantalisingly before her of a red-haired man in a grey suit, smiling at her, and a tiny baby that she was looking at with great love. There was the disturbing feeling that she should know these people, but Ellie-Jane remained in ignorance of what these flashes meant, except that they would waken a strong yearning within her.

  Gradually, over time, Ellie-Jane had adjusted to life in the world of the Imomm, with all its Glamour and illusory Faery nature. It was only the rare occasions when she was above the Hills in Eronth that she would have the disconcerting knowledge she was a stranger in this land. Faeries were both frowned upon and feared in the goddess-worshipping world of Eronth. This was because they refused to modify their ancient rituals, such as stealing changelings, and tithing small children to Hades in the Underground, or to Black Annis, the Cannibal Queen. Being from Earth, a Bluite, she was ill-equipped to deal with whatever strange manifestations occurred in Eronth, and she feared the prejudice directed at the Imomm by the Eronthites. Now she looked around helplessly, strangely loath to enter the Circle of Nine, where she was convinced Maya was hiding.

  Maya smiled, leaning further back into the stone. She loved to torment Ellie-Jane. She sensed the sly giggling of the Winskis that encircled her head, and she put her fingers to her lips, hushing them. Above her the sky was a gorgeous peach colour, and the triple moons could still be glimpsed in the far distance. In every direction she looked, she saw the shimmering, luxuriant green and silver rolling hillocks, and on the far horizon, dark purple mountains flecked with black lashes of trees. In the middle of such peace it was hard to believe the bustling agricultural village of Faia was only a short walk away. Curious, oversized silver and purple bumblebees buzzed near her, causing the Winskis to hold each other and scream. Oh, by King Pysphorrus’s beard, it was a divine day! Maya smiled, pushing her long dark hair up, wishing that she could rise upwards and dance in the fresh air, as the Winskis were now doing. Oh, for wings!