Circle of Nine: Circle of Nine Trilogy 1

by Josephine Pennicott

  ‘What are you shamed for, Bindisore?’ the Crone demanded.

  The child stared at the ground, unable to lift her eyes to look upon her exalted interrogator. Then, thinking better of ignoring the question, she replied in a tone that held no life or hope.

  ‘Hexing, Old Mother.’

  Khartyn arched an eyebrow. Hexing was considered one of the more serious transgressions of the law in Eronth. In a land where materialisation occurred instantly, hexing had to be kept under strict control and the death penalty still applied to those who transgressed this rule. The child would be lucky to live a week.

  ‘Then may the Dreamers protect your cursed soul, my child!’ the Crone replied.

  There came no answer from the hunched child. But as Khartyn turned to survey the waiting crowd of applicants for her selection process, she heard the rushing of the ocean and felt the unmistakable sigh of the Dreamers emanating from the child.

  ‘Mother . . .’ It was a statement. A plea. An order.

  Amazed, Khartyn wheeled around to face the Bindisore. She approached the child and pulled the hood from her head, and the crowd rippled with horror that the Crone would contaminate herself so. But Khartyn was oblivious to the attention that her actions had created, for in the child’s third eye was the shell on fire, the mark of the apprentice!

  ‘Does a mother know its child?’ Khartyn asked gently as the Bindisore fainted from the shock of realising that it was Khartyn, the legendary Khartyn who had assisted at her hatching, who was addressing her.

  ‘Quickly!’ Khartyn called to the gaping townspeople. ‘Release this child! She is the Chosen One!’

  The large crowd exploded with outrage and surprise. The High Priestess Mary materialised in the middle of this tumult. She was a Crossa, and had arrived from the Blue Planet when only a small child.

  ‘You cannot take her, Crone! Not only is she Bindisore, but she stands accused of the crime of hexing and must be duly punished under Faia law. You know as well as I do that we cannot afford to be lenient to transgressors of such an offence!’

  Khartyn drew herself up to her full height. A lightning bolt of energy appeared to flash between her and the villagers.

  ‘I claim this child with a law more ancient than Faia law!’

  Her words would be repeated throughout Eronth for countless moon-cycles.

  ‘Yea,’ she continued, ‘it be the law of the Dreamers, for the Bindisore carries the burning shell within her forehead!’

  Cries of disbelief burst from the crowd. In all recorded history no Bindisore had ever been so favoured by the Dreamers. The Crone’s apprentice a Bindisore! The favoured one! Bindisores were an ostracised, despised race. Now the Crone was preparing to coach one in all the secrets and mysteries of the ancient ways! Several of the small Faiaites, ones who had longed to be the Chosen One and had been preparing since midsummer, burst into tears.

  Mary surveyed the ancient hag in front of her with her calm and all too human eyes. She shrugged a shoulder.

  ‘So be it if the Dreamers will it.’

  With her hands outraised she emanated a charge that unlocked the gates of the pillory. Khartyn caught the child as she fell.

  ‘If the Dreamers have placed the burning shell inside this Bindisore’s forehead then she is the Chosen One. Yet my intuition tells me, Crone, that this Bindisore will bring you great pain and grief. The child is a user and abuser of power. She is not pure enough to perform sacred magical rites.’

  Khartyn assisted the child to her feet gently.

  ‘Aye, Priestess. That may be so. But who are you — indeed, who are we — to question the Dreamers?’

  ‘I will hold you responsible, Crone.’ The High Priestess’s voice was gentle, but her eyes now flashed cold steel. ‘Any offence that the Bindisore commits against Faia now will be held to your account! I presume you are fully aware of this child’s unholy birth? Do you realise it is one that you yourself attended. Or are you too concerned with the prophecies of shells to bother with such trifles?’

  ‘I remember, Mary. I know what manner of creature this child be.’

  ‘And do you know what manners such a manner of creature possesses?’ Mary continued. ‘She is trouble. All Bindisores are trouble — the black blood of Seleza’s angel brood flows thick in their veins — and I trust you will pardon me, Crone, for speaking bluntly when I say you may regret raising the power of this dangerous child. I have spoken my mind.’

  Khartyn nodded, disliking having to challenge the Priestess’s authority in public; Mary’s displeasure was obvious. She knew how difficult it had been for Mary to cross and reach such great heights so quickly in Faia. She wanted no doubts in the Eronthites’ minds that Mary’s authority was law. Besides, Mary made a powerful ally, and one she could ill-afford to antagonise. She watched uncomfortably as the haughty Priestess strode through the square. The child looked up into the Crone’s wizened face.

  ‘Is it true, Mother?’ she asked. ‘Are you really choosing me — the black-egg child?’ Her tone implied that there had been a mistake.

  ‘Yes, child,’ Khartyn replied kindly. ‘You will live and study under my tutelage until the Dreamers decree it is time for you to leave. What is your name, Bindisore?’

  ‘The mother eagle that hatched me called me Sati.’

  As Khartyn stared into the child’s coal-black eyes, a faint memory of a birth that she had attended rose within her, and an icy feeling of apprehension gripped her. The child will one day seek to destroy you, her inner voice prophesied. Ripples of uncertainty flooded Khartyn as she led the small child through the now-silent crowd.

  Although the Faiaites were a peaceful race, their hostility toward her choice was clearly outlined on their faces and Khartyn realised that a quick exit was the best form of defence. Their disapproval only heightened the wave of unease she was feeling. Why would the Dreamers give to her an apprentice who would turn on her? What was the purpose? Was it a test for Khartyn? She had been tested many times by the Dreamers and each test proved more subtle and cunning than the one before. Wasn’t it perilous to teach a Bindisore the ancient ways if she had inner warning that the child would prove to be dangerous and disloyal? Yet how could she ignore the burning shell?

  The child gripped her hand tighter as the old woman’s inner dialogue continued.

  ‘Don’t fret, Old Mother. I’ll do my best by you.’

  They were words quietly spoken but they carried the strength and conviction of a solemn promise.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The seasons came and went and the Wheel of the Year turned. Persephone rose and descended, rose and descended. The Bindisore grew from the tiny, frightened child that she had been into a strikingly beautiful young woman. So beautiful that the women of Faia bustled their men to the opposite side of the village lanes when Sati and Khartyn made their occasional trips into town, fearful that their menfolk would be forever enchanted and bound by the Bindisore’s beauty. Sati never asked the Crone about her dark beginnings, and the Crone never revealed the secrets of the child’s birth that lurked within her breast. So the two women lived together for many seasons in uneasy comradeship.

  Khartyn found it difficult to fault the girl as an apprentice. She studied diligently and despite her little interest in Herbal Lore and Healing, she persevered in her lessons. The apprentice’s true gift was shape-shifting. She could transform herself into another form as easily as another could turn the page of a book. Khartyn would often study her apprentice in her scrying mirror as she soared miles above Eronth land encased in her bird form. Khartyn had known of no other apprentice who could match the Bindisore for shape-shifting.

  And yet, as the Wheel of the Year turned, the unease inside Khartyn’s guts continued to simmer. Lust for power hung too heavily around the girl. The young apprentice had expressed no desire to perform service acts for the beings of Eronth, no desire for Healing work as had been the case with so many of her other apprentices. All Sati appeared to be interested in w
as shape-shifting and exploring the skies above. There was an insolence lurking in those half-bird, half-human eyes, but Khartyn chose to ignore this and other symptoms of a powerful and unrestrained ego. I cannot expect the girl to be like other apprentices, she told herself continually. She is Bindisore and must be accepted for the unique being that she is.

  Life continued on in the same routine in Dome Cottage. Lessons of Astronomy, Philosophy, Languages of All Worlds, Aromatherapy, Herbalism, Iridology, Reflexology and Botany. Sati continued to shape-shift and grew more beautiful every day as she perfected Glamouring. The Crone began to relax slightly. Her time must be near, she reasoned. The Dreamers will allocate her a task and terminate the contract. I have misjudged the Bindisore; soon she will be called.

  And Sati was called, but not by the Dreamers; she was called by the Dark Beautiful One known as Ishran.

  *

  When Sati returned from one of her lengthier flights with the vibration of lust dripping from her thighs and mouth, Khartyn knew instantly that she had mated with another. Her attempt to disguise her action by throwing more Glamour around herself couldn’t fool the Crone. She stirred the pot of herbal broth she was preparing for a sick child in Faia.

  ‘What was he, Sati?’ she enquired without looking at her apprentice. ‘A bird or a man?’

  Sati flushed. With the echoes of the lovemaking still sounding, Khartyn could understand the appeal Sati would have for a man. On recent trips to Faia she had despaired of the constant barrage of attention Sati received from the Faia men. They would eye her hungrily, drawn by her voluptuous breasts and hips, and her lips so red and full. Forbidden fruit is the tastiest, the Crone had thought, watching as the Faiaite men would turn their heads, one after another. The frightened little child they pilloried is long forgotten.

  ‘Neither, Old Mother,’ Sati replied. ‘It was an angel. The Beautiful One. Ishran.’

  Khartyn sensed the fear inside the girl. There was a pause in the kitchen as Khartyn watched the broth bubble. She felt no anger, only a sense of destiny cheating her. So it was inevitable that the Bindisore would contaminate her mind and body with the impure essences of the Dark Winged Ones. She couldn’t really blame Sati. The girl had not betrayed her guardian. Rather she had been all too true to herself, to her own origins, and her own unholy relatives. The only betrayal had been Khartyn deceiving herself by forcing herself to believe it might be otherwise and for refusing to admit to the true identity of the Bindisore that she had adopted.

  So this is how it ends, she thought dully, knowing it was inevitable. This is what the Dreamers had in store for me all this time.

  Sati was born for Ishran. His own demonic brother, an outcast Azephim, had spawned her from his unholy kylon. Half her blood was Azephim. Yet a part of the Crone cried like a mewing kitten at the prospect of releasing her precious child to the angels. She fought the emotion down, using an ancient breath technique that her guardian centuries before had revealed to her. Sati stared defiantly at the Crone, bracing herself for the fury and disgust. But Khartyn just tasted the broth and nodded in approval. It tasted good.

  ‘Tonight, when I lie with Hypnos,’ Khartyn announced, ‘I will consult the Dreamers on the best course of action, my child.’

  Sati tossed her coal-black waist-length hair over her shoulders and smiled wistfully. Khartyn thought in that moment that her apprentice had never looked more beautiful or more terrible.

  ‘The Dreamers will recommend that I be discharged from your service, Old Mother. I have exchanged body fluids with the Beautiful Ones and can no longer be as a pure maid.’

  ‘But there are purification rites we can use, Sati! Aphrodite herself renews her virginity. The Dark Ones are only an aspect of the light as the light is an aspect of the dark, and both need the other.’

  Khartyn found herself arguing mechanically, knowing full well she was wasting precious breath.

  ‘You think I don’t know that!’ Sati hissed at Khartyn. ‘I live with light and dark inside me with every breath I draw, Mother!’

  She drew herself up to her full height and in her eyes Khartyn witnessed the ancient bird blood that was her heritage.

  ‘I am Bindisore!’ Sati cried defiantly.

  As the Crone stared at the beautiful, distorted face in front of her, she realised that the apprenticeship was already over. All these seasons of preparing and training the child had been in vain. All she had achieved was that the Bindisore had discovered latent powers within to carry herself to the Azephim. But the Dreamers had selected Sati for a reason, Khartyn reminded herself. The burning shell had materialised on her forehead!

  As she stared at her young apprentice’s bird-like, reptilian eyes a chilling sensation like black frost dripped through her veins. It is my fault, she reproached herself, if Sati brings trouble to Faia or to herself. I am to blame and not she, for I have opened her centres and taught her to shape-shift. Sati stared angrily at her and in her eyes Khartyn saw the pain and fury of the secret that they shared but were forbidden to speak of.

  *

  That night she said not a word to her apprentice as Sati roamed restlessly around Dome Cottage. The planned lesson on the known worlds did not eventuate. Sacred maps lay unused in the trunk. The lessons have been learnt, Khartyn thought sadly. That night she anointed herself in myrrh and sat bolt upright for hours, eyes wide open and heartbeat low, oblivious to Eronth, as she visited the Dreamers for guidance.

  *

  At daybreak’s breath Khartyn emerged from her trance to discover that Sati had fled Dome Cottage. She had taken with her several of Khartyn’s valued ritual instruments and an early Book of Shadows that had been passed to the Crone by her guardian.

  Khartyn cursed under her breath at this latter theft. The other instruments she could manage without, being merely props — the true power existed within herself. But the Book of Shadows was a devastating loss. Centuries of incarnations and divinations were concealed within its pages. She could console herself with the knowledge that the book was enchanted and its words became nonsense verse when the pages were turned by anyone other than the Crone. There was always the risk, however, that Sati’s magic would become so powerful that she would be able to decipher the code and read the unintelligible recordings.

  Dear Goddess, she reflected, when Faia discovers that Sati has absconded to the Azephim, I will be held accountable!

  Then she shrugged. Irate Faia High Priestess or not, there were still ilkama waiting to be fed and herbs to be gathered for healing work. Grieving for her apprentice’s inevitable betrayal would have to be postponed.

  Yet in the days and nights that followed, the Crone found herself anxiously scanning the endless sky, yearning to see the Bindisore, wings outstretched and flying back to her. The skies yielded no such gifts and Khartyn finally accepted the loss and gave into mourning and grief.

  There were repercussions in Faia when Sati was eventually spotted sweeping through the skies with the notorious Ishran. Mary demanded a private audience with Khartyn, and the Crone met with the High Priestess in her quarters. Ovoid in shape, the interior of the chamber a creamy-pink, Khartyn knew that Mary had fashioned her home to resemble the Dreamers’ shell, where the sleeping three sisters, according to all the myths, legends and Tremite Scribe writings, lay in each other’s arms, dreaming all the known worlds into existence. There had been many rumours in Eronth that Mary had even visited these sisters.

  Khartyn was ushered into the room by Mary’s assistant Geldoz, a hybrid bull-man of the Weldon race. The Weldon bull people were plentiful in the area surrounding Faia. Although they looked ferocious with their long curling horns and oversized bull heads, they possessed powerful intellects and were much in demand for work that involved rational planning and thought. Geldoz had proved himself to be a master at negotiation, even when it came to dealing with the difficult giants and their land disputes. Khartyn had always been impressed by the impeccable manners that Geldoz had displayed to her. He had a heart as b
ig as his enormous head. Today he looked stately, in a bright-red tunic with gleaming silver buttons and matching silver boots, his curling horns polished to perfection.

  Ano the Janusite, Mary’s closest confidant, stood silently beside his mistress. Like all Janusites, he spoke little and saw much. Khartyn always felt a dart of pity stab at her heart when she encountered Ano. Janusites were extremely rare in Eronth. Many of them had died of heart failure. To be a Janusite with the two heads that could witness both past, present and future was an extreme trial. Janusite law forbade them to ever discuss their visions. Khartyn believed the stress of what they had to live with caused their plentiful deaths. There were believed to be only a dozen or so Janusites left in Eronth (the small group that had attended the Candlemas celebrations was the largest number Khartyn had seen together for many Turns of the Wheel), and Ano showed no signs of finding a female that he was suited to for breeding purposes. Khartyn knew why this was so. He was in love with Mary. The High Priestess appeared oblivious to the fact that her closest friend was besotted with her. Or else she chose to ignore it, Khartyn thought.

  Ano was dressed in black trousers and a black top. He loved fashion, and often travelled to New Baffin to acquire items for his wardrobe. His two heads were identical, each with red curling hair to the shoulders, and his eyes were fringed with extraordinarily long black lashes. In the centre of each white eye was a dazzling gold pupil. He loved to laugh and had a self-deprecating sense of humour, but Khartyn never missed the deep sadness in his eyes.