Bride of the Stone: Circle of Nine Trilogy 2

by Josephine Pennicott

  ‘It’s taken the Eom! That thing has stolen the Eom!’

  The cacophony was renewed. Angels moaned and screamed as, one after another, they began to be sucked into the Web. Khartyn had one final thought before she fell into black night: It is the child of the Eom. Not the Ghormho. How?

  Pain in her heart, in her head. Fenn had delivered the unthinkable.

  An image of her apprentice came into her mind. She had a sense of foreboding, a deep sadness within her belly, and the taste of ashes in her mouth. ‘Rosedark?’ she whispered. Attempting to control the panic within her, she turned to Rashka who was crouched on the floor, blood smearing the seat of her leather pants. Around her were Azephim who had survived witnessing the birth of the glass Faery.

  ‘I have to return to Faia immediately,’ Khartyn said. Rashka looked up, her hair filled with flecks of gore.

  ‘Don’t come near!’ she hissed. ‘The Priestess is dead!’

  Khartyn stared at Seleza, shocked at the depth of emotion rising within her at the news. Although Khartyn was in open condemnation of the Azephim for their bloodthirsty customs, she had long respected Seleza for her strength and efforts to outlaw some of the angels’ crueller practices, such as the spinnerets. Khartyn stepped backwards, almost slipping as her black boot met with a sticky substance on the floor.

  An Azephim in grief was not something that the Crone felt capable of dealing with. But despite her apprehension, her fears for her apprentice forced her to try to communicate with Rashka. ‘Your Hosthatch was the finest Azephim I have known,’ Khartyn said gently. ‘I will mourn for her when I return to Faia. But now I must return. I am needed urgently in my homeland and I have honoured my promise to you to deliver the egg.’ As she spoke the words, she glanced around the destroyed room nervously. If Rashka blamed her for what had hatched from the egg, then death was only a few precious breaths away and she would never be able to help Rosedark.

  *

  Eronth.

  ‘Bwani! Speak to me, brother!’ Edwen crouched over Bwani, green healing light flashing from his hands as he attempted to stop the flow of blood from a wound on Bwani’s head.

  ‘Careful,’ Josem warned. ‘Don’t try to move him.’ Steppm, Claw, Harbog and Ejillahm drew the daggers fastened at their waists. Delicate carvings of birds circled the handles, and thin layers of quartz crystals covered the lethal blades. Falling into a practised formation, they covered each other, eyes watching every shadow, every leaf that moved. The Wizards covered their noses and mouths at the rank smell that surrounded the pretty love nest. Edwen, Aaambll, and Dewf bent over Bwani.

  ‘Is he alive?’ Claw asked. ‘Where is Maya?’

  ‘He’s alive,’ said Edwen. ‘No sign of her. Come on, brother.’

  Bwani groaned, opening his eyes. ‘Maya! I have to get to her,’ he managed to stammer.

  ‘You’re going nowhere, brother,’ Edwen snapped. ‘Can you move?’

  ‘What happened to Maya?’ Claw called, breaking his watch to turn his head towards the love nest.

  ‘Shut up, Claw,’ Harbog said. ‘Let him get his tongue back.’

  Bwani tried to sit up, but collapsed with a groan. ‘Faeries. Wezom. I think they got me with one of their darts.’

  ‘A fine dart to give you that gash in your head, brother,’ said Edwen. He began searching Bwani’s neck. ‘I can’t see anything. Are you sure it was Wezom?’ Bwani nodded, closing his eyes. ‘Yes, but they were not alone. There were Sea Hags.’

  ‘Sea Hags have taken Maya!’ Claw dropped all pretence at keeping guard and moved towards Bwani. ‘You allowed the Sea Hags to take Maya?’

  ‘Here it is.’ Edwen pulled the glinting sliver of a Wezom dart from Bwani’s right ear. The warriors exchanged concerned looks as he buried it, his face crinkled with disgust. It was impossible to gauge how much of the dart’s poison had permeated Bwani’s bloodstream. He needed the attention of a Healing Crone urgently.

  ‘Calm yourself, Claw,’ Bwani said, his eyelids beginning to flutter. ‘The Sea Hags did not take her, but worse, much worse. Just as I spotted the Hags, a large Snatcher appeared from nowhere and took her.’

  ‘A Snatcher?’ Edwen said. ‘Are you sure? You saw her taken by an Erinnyes?’

  Claw let out a moan. ‘She is in the Underworld?’ He covered his face in horror. It was well known how Snatchers loved to steal away all manner of beings to the world of the dead and refuse to return them to the land of the living.

  ‘I have to follow her,’ Bwani said. ‘I have to make contact with the Mother of Monsters and get her back.’

  ‘You are not going anywhere,’ Edwen said. ‘Are you sure you did not imagine it?’

  ‘Can’t you smell the thing?’ Bwani said. The Wizards looked at each other. The rotten smell of decaying meat hung heavily in the air.

  ‘I saw it,’ Bwani whispered, as he slid into unconsciousness. ‘I looked into the face of the Snatcher.’

  *

  Consciousness returned slowly to Mary. With comprehension came pain, the worst wave of pain she had ever experienced, washing through her body. A queer, muffled panic told her part of her lip was hanging off and her arm appeared to be broken. Where was she? Slowly she attempted to take in her surroundings and was rewarded with another fierce blast of pain. She half collapsed onto a stone floor wet with her own blood. Somewhere in her brain she knew she had the knowledge of her location. She had been in this place before, but viewed from another angle. The pain proved too much for the High Priestess, and she fell into black, merciful oblivion.

  Mary awoke later, screaming. She would not have believed it possible but the pain was even fiercer than before. Rats made scuttling sounds in the blackness around her, drawn to her blood drying across the floor. Fear cleared her mind slightly, and she attempted to sit up, her broken arm dangling uselessly. Goddess help me! There were thick bars on the other side of the room. Through the slats the triple moons glowed in the sky beyond. Suddenly Mary knew she was in the holding quarters in Faia, unused for countless Turns of the Wheel apart from the occasional Faery arrested for pickpocketing or attempting to snatch children. It was virtually a museum piece, a reminder to Faia that times had not always been so peaceful. Memory came flooding back to her. The Handfasting. Maya and Bwani looking so perfect, so beautiful. Then that shocking incident when the small hermaphrodite had come running into the circle with his mutilated eyes and news that Maya had been abducted and Bwani killed. A confused image followed, of thousands of Azephim angels landing; a sight Mary had never thought she would witness in her lifetime. Even more unlikely was the Crone, Khartyn, flying away in the arms of the Deadly Angels. A darker memory lurched and she began to sob. The Lightcaster. He had been there all the time, watching, appraising, and, just after Khartyn had vanished into the heavens, he finally struck.

  She remembered her shock when he first made his appearance. It had been the first time Mary had seen a Lightcaster feeding. He had been gorging himself secretly for months on the most base emotions he was capable of evoking. Lightcasters had always appeared refined and debonair in the accounts she had studied. But the hideous, grotesque figure that had cavorted before her had borne no resemblance to the murderous dandies of her books. Slimy strands clumped off a body disfigured by masses of shining black scales. His stench was putrid, weighed down with the smell of old blood and decaying bodies. As he laughed his head grew to tower above the crowd who had gathered in joyful anticipation of celebrating the Handfasting. Events had seemed to move in slow motion. At first there was mass panic, people pushing to get away. Mary had tried to send a message bird to the Circle of Nine, who had just left the field to go to the aid of Bwani and Maya, when a loud whisper had begun to fill the air coming from the pulsating, filthy mass that was the Lightcaster.

  ‘Witch! Witch! See the Witch? The cunning Bluite witch and her consort, Janus? Look at the Crone’s apprentice. Observe how she shrinks before me. What do you see when you gaze at her face? Do you see the face of the witch?�
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  His words had created a whirlpool of wind. Leaves fell from trees, fresh and green, and rose upwards into the air, now dried and brown. People moaned, some realising a Lightcaster was among them. Hands clamped over ears in attempts to block his voice. But he was a mature male and had fed well recently; Mary knew how dangerous these creatures were in their prime.

  ‘Witch! Witch!’ The words snaked through the air. Nearby trees had begun to shake, their roots threatening to dislodge from the earth.

  Ano had grabbed Mary by the arm, dead leaves flying into his face and mouth as he screamed a warning. ‘He’s too powerful! Run!’

  It was too late. The villagers had turned on each other, their faces twisted in anger and fear. Then eyes fixed upon Mary, Ano and Rosedark, who had instinctively pressed together. The Lightcaster appeared to be a black mass now, although in the middle of his being Mary thought she could see a pair of glowing eyes. They were surrounded by rotten falling leaves, and now the villagers groped for them among the leaves, pulling them by the hair to the ground. ‘Mary!’ Ano called. ‘Rosedark!’ But it was too late. The villagers and the leaves were upon them.

  EPILOGUE

  Seek the Resurrected, the consort of the Man Slayer

  When she carries him ashore, seek him in still waters

  When she brings him to life, you shall wonder

  When he dies, you shall weep

  When he rots, crops will flourish

  When he descends into the Underworld your prayers accompany him

  To the end of time in the land of the free

  — ‘Adonis’, traditional Eronthite song

  ‘What is his name?’ Small, childlike, the voice spoke from the darkness. There was a sigh, long and lingering, echoing sharply around imagined corridors, great chandeliers made of web, and windows drawn with stick into earth. Shadows, formed from dreams, from light, from breath.

  ‘Ye know his name,’ a second voice replied. The tone was low, seeking to control the urgency behind it. There was a short, sharp, bitter laugh. A slight wind blew, moving the dust and leaves that carpeted the Underground. The dream was disturbed.

  ‘Is it Adonis? Is it Tammuz? Or do you call him by the older, forbidden names?’

  There, there it was again, the faint rasping of envy in the first voice. There was silence, broken only by the sound of the two goddesses breathing.

  ‘It is nearly time,’ the second voice said. ‘Overground, the trees are returning to life. Fresh virgin green leaves are sprouting. Spring flowers are awakening, and the star has returned. It is shining brightly over Eronth. I have been patient, but now it is nearly time.’

  Another silence. There was a faint rustle of a skirt as she spoke, and she whirled, her cat-eyes unable to penetrate the heavy darkness.

  ‘Are the dead rising?’ the child voice said.

  ‘Yes, can you not feel them? They are rising from their graves, they are walking the streets of New Baffin, attempting to enter the temples.’ She could feel the owner of the child’s voice smiling into the blackness.

  ‘If the Festival of the Flowers has begun, then it is nearly time for me to rise.’

  ‘Nearly, but not quite.’ Overhead there came a sound like the sound of men beating on the Underground, attempting to get in, or else just a heavy rain. The two voices paused, looking upwards, senses straining, attempting to read the disturbance. The child-woman spoke:

  ‘I have lost track of time again.’ Her heartbeat could be clearly heard in the abnormal silence. Again she sighed, and Aphrodite fancied that she was tugging on the end of a long plait of ragged hair, a faint frown above her eyes. There was the sound of rustling, of a cupboard being opened, and a smell of must, forgotten dreams and the cry of a long-dead Egyptian pharaoh. Then a container was placed, cold and throbbing, into Aphrodite’s eager, sweaty hands. Footsteps moved lightly away from her, and she imagined that Persephone, the Kore, was now sitting down.

  ‘Have they given the rest of him back from the sea?’

  As the Kore asked the question, Aphrodite could hear the scurrying sounds of rats, or perhaps, other worse subterranean dwellers.

  ‘They have.’ Aphrodite clasped the casket firmly to her heart. Feeling the grisly remains of her lover throbbing inside, crying out to her.

  ‘Go then. Go to your shining star, and your Festival of Flowers, and your lover who waits for you above. Go, before your eyes begin to lose their sight, giving you the gift of blindness to allow you perception in the Underground.’ Aphrodite could smell the Kore’s anger, and sadness, and she felt ashamed of her urgency to rise to the Overland.

  ‘I must leave. The rites have to be enacted.’

  ‘They always have to be enacted,’ Persephone agreed, her voice sad, small, bruised.

  Aphrodite lingered, unsure of the right words, or actions. She felt compassion for the child-woman trapped for so long in the mouldy, dark world of the shadows.

  ‘It is nearly time for you to rise,’ she said finally. There was no answer from the darkness. The shadows settled again into restless sleep.

  With her arms wrapped firmly around the casket, Aphrodite began to rise into the air. She dreaded these annual confrontations with the Goddess. Persephone always grew attached to the casket, always was reluctant to hand it over, and so Aphrodite was relieved, and yet ashamed of her relief, to be leaving the Underworld behind. She ascended quickly in silence. Aphrodite knew that Persephone would have closed her eyes, by now unwilling to face the endless darkness. Her head would be bowed, in her eternal pose of weary acceptance. It was always so.

  They were waiting for her as she burst through the ground. The contrast between worlds was dazzling, enough to send a lesser being into insanity. Her Chosen Ones peered anxiously at her with their heads recently shaved in honour of the ascension. By their side stood three young men, sacrifices for the occasion. They had spent the last Turn of the Wheel in luxury, pampered with the finest food and wine in New Baffin. Now they stood with white faces and trembling hands, knowing that the women who flanked them, Aphrodite’s Brides, would slit their throats at the chosen moment. The crops would bathe in their blood.

  The Brides cheered as Aphrodite held the golden casket upright. Doves were released to the heavens. The youngest of the Brides stepped forward. She, too, held the casket from the sea. With great reverence she placed it on the soil and opened it, moving back quickly. Now Aphrodite stepped forward and squatted down on the soil, placing the casket next to the sea casket, and unfastening the lid. The decomposing remains of Adonis could be glimpsed and smelt inside the magic vessel. There was an excited murmuring from the Brides. Several of them stepped closer to the three sacrifices, gleaming knives at the ready. The men looked about with wild eyes, longing for escape.

  Carefully, Aphrodite tipped the contents of both caskets onto the soil and mixed them together with her bare brown hands. She muttered an incantation as she did so, in a tongue not recognisable. She spat onto the earth, closing her eyes briefly, for a heartbeat. There was a great rushing from the soil where she had planted the remains of her lover. Loud screams erupted from the Brides as Adonis rose from the earth, fully formed, his arms held out to Aphrodite in endless yearning.

  ‘Adonis has risen!’ Aphrodite yelled to the Brides, tears of joy running down her face at the annual resurrection.

  ‘Indeed he has risen. He has risen indeed!’ the Brides returned. They held the sacrificial victims with heavy ropes that cut deep gashes into their wrists. The youngest Brides stepped forward, knives raised, and cut their throats with a single, savage slash. The men died quickly, their eyes wide open in surprise, their pupils dilated from the drug that they had been given.

  Aphrodite stared into the same eyes she had stared into for endless centuries while tales were told and mythologies created. There was only now. Later she would lie awake, agonising over the trials that were to come, the necessity for Adonis to die, to return to the earth and the sea. But for now they had each other. She ignored
the Brides, who cried out in delight, sprinkling the fresh blood over each other, dancing with joy in the field. Later, she would lie in Adonis’s arms, and partake of the pleasure that only gods know how to give each other. But for now, the next part of the ritual would have to be performed. The fields would be blessed with the holy offering, the quarters thanked and the magical circle that had been opened, would be closed.

  ‘He has risen!’ Aphrodite screamed again, a wild scream of joy and triumph.

  The earth moved in a silent whisper, but from the Underground, there was only silence.

  GLOSSARY

  ALFECKLAND

  Ancient nature spirit. Is nearly extinct now in several worlds, and totally extinct on the Blue Planet. The Alfecklands have retreated in ever-increasing numbers to forest land near Faia, in an effort to restore their dwindling numbers.

  AMEW

  Azephim High Council. The Amew consists of voted members, eleven in all, who preside over day-to-day affairs concerning the Azephim. They have very little regard for rules and regulations and are easily corrupted.

  ANGOLI

  Child Azephim.

  ASRAI

  Small delicate female Faeries who melt away into a pool of water when captured or exposed to sunlight.

  ATHAME

  Witch’s knife, used for channelling energy and casting circles.

  AZEPHIM

  Dark Angels.

  AZMOME

  Poison that the Sea Hags inject from spikes in their bodies.

  BAFFIN

  Coastal city in Eronth. (See also New Baffin; Old Baffin.)

  BASAL

  Goat-men. Friends and allies of the Stag Man.

  BELTHANE

  The great festival celebrating fertility and fire. Robert Graves claims in The White Goddess that the Belthane fires culminated in the sacrifice of a man representing the Oak God. Belthane is a festival of human sexuality and fertility, a celebration of spring energy.

  BINDISORE

  Outcast. Offspring of interbreeding, most often as a result of union between Azephim and Faiaites, or Azephim and Faery tribes. A Bindisore is hatched from an egg that is commonly fostered by an eagle.