by Rex Baron
“I've finished,” Helen called to Kurt.
He started toward her, dragging the stick he used to till the earth, like a tired farmer returning from the fields.
Helen watched the moon slowly develop against a violet sky, bright as a silver coin and half its full shape. The moon should have been in ripe fullness to perform this conjuration, but Kurt could not wait. He had resisted her warning that the spell might bring forth disastrous effects if not performed precisely as required, but he would not hear of it.
She had spent the morning of the previous day calculating the conditions for the spell. It should be set at the eighth hour of the evening on Saturday, the day of Saturn, while the sun was passing through the sign of Aries. How odd, she conjectured, that the sign of the zodiac assigned to the ram, the devil's familiar, should be the month in which Chancellor Hitler was born.
They quit the field and retreated into the house, where they bathed themselves ritualistically, calling upon the spirits, who first made the dry land appear, to uncover the uncleanliness and deceits of their enemies.
Their nakedness held no excitement for Helen. There was no expectation of the passionate lovemaking she had shared with Kurt when they first ventured underground into the Castle of Shadows. They were incidentally naked together, in the same ridiculous way that she had seen naturalists on the Isle of Sylt, playing volleyball or golf, unaware of each other’s lack of clothing. It was an absurdity of nakedness, without the purposeful intent of love. She watched his powerful body, colored by the sun, and wondered what secret games he played amongst his soldiers that would allow him a tan so complete.
She still found him beautiful, but she had as little need for him now as he had for her. Their union was about power, not about love. Perhaps they had finally come to recognize their purpose, she as the goddess and he as the conductor of the forces. They had become merely two sides of a balanced equation, mathematical, cold and without emotion.
Perhaps the philter she had made so many years ago to attract the Prince had been the reason for the false passion between them. It colored his need for her with desire, which, in the end, only corrupted the high ideals to which he aspired as one who was more than mortal.
Kurt went about the work of the ritual, blind to Helen's appraising glances.
“Purge me with hyssop,” he chanted. “Wash me and cleanse me in the name of the gods Astachoth, Adonai, Agla, El, Tetragrammaton, Shema, Anaphaxeton, Primeumaton.”
Without a word between them, they dressed in white linen robes and placed crowns made of virgin parchment on their heads, upon which the four names and symbols of the four winds had been drawn in the blood of a dove.
Kurt raised his hands above their heads and whispered:
“Amor, Amator, Amides, Ideodaniach, Pamor, Plaior, Anitor. Through the merits of these holy angels will I robe and imbue myself with the vestments of power, through which I may conduct unto a desired end those things which I ardently desire.”
He repeated the holy names, and lapsing into silence, took up the incense censer, the ceremonial black-handled knife and a small crystal lantern, then led the way, barefoot, back out into the field.
The half moon hung over the flat plain like a glass bowl filled with the purest milk. As they carefully negotiated their way over the twigs and stones of the field, Helen heard the hum of an unseen force present in the blackness. Her heart pounded with anticipation at what they intended to do. She dropped to her knees, and using the black-handled knife, traced the outline of a circle in the dirt. She drew the symbols of the winds and the elements, the names of the four Archangels and the ancient gods of Tetragrammaton, whose names cannot be spoken. Over her shoulder, she watched Kurt striding up and down the newly planted furrows, sprinkling them with the water from his censer and chanting in rhythmic precision, giving nourishment to the newly planted crop of unborn beings.
The sound of the hum increased in volume and intensity, and Helen was no longer certain whether it originated from outside her head or within. It was the presence of the goddess of the earth, the primordial element of nothingness from which all things were fashioned. She felt the presence descending upon her, enfolding her, making her limbs feel heavy and solid, as if the weighty consciousness of being rested upon her. She was made of the earth, the ashes and dust of which the funeral service speaks, the shapeless, unnamed matter that can only be called into being by an act of conscious Will.
“Hurry, it's starting to gather,” she shouted to Kurt.
He finished his chore of watering and quickly pulled her into the circle of safety she had drawn on the ground.
He called out to the ever-darkening sky.
“Born of the earth and quenched with the cool waters of eternity, I call upon the names of the winds to carry the eternal flame on high.”
Helen bent down and lit the small lantern with a match, then handed it up to Kurt. His eyes cast back the light from the flame, glowing in the darkness as if illuminated from within.
“Oh lord, powerful creature of fire,” he called, “blessed by the glory of thy name, I call upon thee so that this work might be carried out without hindrance or evil unto those who use it. I call upon the four winds to summon the legions in whatever foul form be required to do my bidding, at the risk of eternal damnation, by the name Adonai most glorious. Let the light of thy presence bring forth the multitudes of thy children to wage battle for the glory of thy immortal name.”
The wind gathered in force around them, an implosion of energy, drawn in on itself like a spoken word moving backwards into a newly formed thought. Kurt swung the lighted lantern over their heads, churning the air even further by his action. Three times it passed over their paper crowns until he let go his grip and released it, casting it out into the open field as he shouted the name of his god.
The flame from the lantern exploded out over the field, illuminating the furrows of turned soil that he had sprinkled with his combustible libation, transforming them into a thousand rivers of fire. The earth rumbled under their feet as if a great earthquake rippled its way toward them. The furrows undulated like the fingers of a hand, clawing at the earth in despair as the flames rose into transparent walls of scalding fire.
Suddenly, the ground before them split open, like a wound in the Earth's surface, and from its bottomless blackness, a single skeletal figure arose, brandishing a sword of steel and carrying a shield of blackened stone. It appeared as a phantom warrior, peering into the night with sightless eyes, holding the stone shield before its hollow chest for protection, like a tombstone separating the angry dead from the living.
Again and again, the earth split open to produce a deathly phantom, until the entire field was covered with a multitude ten times that of the wax seeds they had planted.
Kurt cried out in triumph.
“I dispatch you on the wind to the place of war on the unseen plane,” he called, as the winds mounted around his words. “Go there and wait, armed with fury and might until I shall come to lead you.”
The wind howled across the field, spiraling into a vortex of energy, gathering up the skeletal warriors like dry leaves caught in a hurricane. They swooped into the air and vanished, one by one, as if disappearing through an unseen portal in the night sky.
The field lay before them, a torn and smoking ruin. The stench of decay wafted to Helen's nostrils on the fragment of a breeze that remained after the onslaught of the magical wind. It had borne the ghastly creatures of war away, then dissipated like the horrors of a nightmare, dissolved with the first rays of morning light.
Kurt clapped his hands in delight and called his praises to the heavens. Helen stood open-mouthed and shaken from the horror of the countless visions of death. She clutched at his arms, holding fast until her irregular breathing subsided. He misjudged her intention, mistaking her embrace for a kindling of desire, a lustful response to the display of power and might he had performed. He scowled at her with disgust and pulled her trembling hands from the
ir grasp.
“There is no need for that now,” he said, staring off into the smoking field. “My sons have already been born.”
Chapter Nineteen
England
“You're in this with the rest of us now, so I might as well explain to you what we're doing,” Miss Auriel said matter of factly, as she took Lexi by the arm and led her into the parlor of Mrs. Etterton's little house.
They had not bothered to knock, and it was somehow understood by the occupants that Ellen and a guest would be expected. As they entered, Lexi saw a group of mostly elderly women, except for a frail-looking old man and a small boy, who had obviously been left in the charge of his grandmother. There was nothing unusual about them at first glance. They sat comfortably in a circle in the small parlor room, flooded with light from the tall French windows that looked out over a neat little garden that grew lush with early blooming spring shrubbery.
The gathering might have been mistaken for a sewing circle or some other homely enterprise of the old, except for the obvious fact that half of them were in deep meditation.
Mrs. Etterton, a stout woman with apple cheeks and an elusive grin, came to meet them, holding her finger to her lips to remind them not to disturb those who were making the passage.
“I brought her along because she knows of someone amongst the enemy who is in possession of the Hand of Glory,” Miss Auriel whispered ominously.
Mrs. Etterton's rosy cheeks went ashen. She stared blankly at Lexi and shook her head.
“I feared something like this. During each passage, every Medium, without fail, has returned to report the same phenomenon, a huge army amassing on the plane of dreams and moving this way.”
“I don't understand,” Lexi broke in. “Who are you people and what are you doing here?”
Mrs. Etterton shot a nervous look to Miss Auriel, who responded by nodding her head emphatically, giving her permission to explain.
“We are occultists,” Mrs. Etterton answered a bit tentatively, turning her eyes back to the wide-eyed newcomer. “Does that surprise you?”
Lexi felt her body recoil with an uneasy feeling and the desire for flight, but the presence of her new friend's hands firmly weighing on her shoulders kept her steady where she stood.
“You needn't be afraid,” Ellen said softly onto her ear. “The word occultist only means those who are familiar and versed in the hidden wisdoms of the universe, like King Solomon in the Bible and many other teachers and prophets. People like these you see before you have defended the shores of England on a psychic level since the time of the Spanish Armada, and probably long before.”
She told Lexi of the cone of power that the occultists of the region had traditionally set up as a protection against enemy attack. They had sat in quiet meditation or taken to the secret places of the woodlands and along the coast, to join their minds in projecting an enormous shaft of energy, like the head of a spear that could be directed against an aggressor and released like an unseen comet, searing into the midst of their attackers. They had used just such a psychic weapon against the Spanish Armada and also against Napoleon's attack by sea. Now, over a century later, they found they must gather together all those of good intent, skilled in the practices of the mind, to once again sit and channel their own life force into the creation of just such a terrible weapon.
“Many of us have died in the past doing this,” Mrs. Etterton said solemnly. “It often takes too much energy out of an individual when the cone of power is sent up. One can be killed on the astral plane just as surely as on the physical one.”
“I don't see what any of this has to do with me,” Lexi said, pulling away from the woman's engaging stare. “I don't know anything about what you're saying... Napoleon and the rest. It's too fantastic and unbelievable.”
“We mustn't confuse her,” Miss Auriel said, breaking the hushed whispers of their conversation. “The fact is that she knows the person who is in possession of the Hand. It is the driving force behind this attack on our shores, and only by going through her physically can we hope to intercept and destroy the owner.”
Lexi withstood their silent scrutiny until she could bear it no longer.
“What do you want from me?” she asked, pulling her shoulders free of the weight of the American's hand.
“We need you to help us save the nation and possibly the entire world from the evil that possesses the Axis enemies.”
“How do a handful of people, sitting in this little cottage, claim to be able to alter the course of the war? You must be mad,” Lexi said.
“Ah, but we are not alone,” Mrs. Etterton said in a more soothing tone. “We are only part of a vast network of willing souls all across Europe and the Americas, who join together in a single thought, to defeat the Axis. That single thought is more powerful than any of the armies on all the fronts.”
“Will you help us, my dear?” Miss Auriel asked. “Without you, our job of defeating them will be harder by far.”
Lexi nodded in confused agreement.
Ellen led her into the parlor room and seated her on a sofa between two gray-haired women, who sat with their eyes closed, traveling in meditation.
She was instructed to close her eyes and relax, but Lexi found it nearly impossible to let go of the anxiety she felt in her shoulders and back. Her physical body resisted the invitation to release some part of its being into another unseen realm.
She concentrated and tried to see the small golden sun inside her head that Miss Auriel described again and again in mesmerizing tones.
Suddenly, she felt a strange sensation, as if she were falling backwards down a long hallway, a dream image brought into the waking mind, creating a link between the two worlds.
“You are building an access point to the other plane,” Ellen whispered just in front of her closed eyes.
Lexi heard the voice, but it was as if the words came from all around her with no specific point of direction in space. She no longer felt as if she was in her body. She had climbed into the highest recesses of her brain, and passing beyond it, her consciousness awoke in a dark space, divorced from any attachment to her physical self. She was able to see and hear in the terrifying formlessness engulfing her, but she felt no sense of being, no method to move or communicate.
Again, she heard Miss Auriel's voice echoing through the darkness.
“You have been sent to this place to search out the holder of the Hand,” the voice resounded inside her thoughts.
The very reminder of her mission established an immediate response, as if by identifying the question she had set up a relationship with the answer.
Suddenly, a soft orange light cut its way through the shadows. Lexi's consciousness blinked in wonder as a figure approached, an orange flame burning over its head like a Pentecostal light. The robed figure moved steadily toward her, and she was amazed to realize that she was not afraid. Finally, she saw that it was a mirror image of herself, perfect in every detail, as if idealized by the hand of some artistic creator. The figure extended its hand to her.
“I am your avatar, your etheric body,” the beautiful projection said. “I have a name that only you may know and must never be spoken. I shall act for you on this plane, since on this level you may only think and feel your actions.”
A question placed itself in Lexi's mind and was answered by her mirror self, even before she had given it form in words.
“Every being has its like counterpart on this plane. It is the form that acts for you in dreams and the being that carries out the will of the Soul between incarnations. Others of your acquaintance have visited you from here and spoken to you in your dreams.”
Lexi thought of the dream she had following her mother's death, in which a frail bedridden woman appeared to her and was miraculously resurrected into the beautiful mother she had known as a child. She remembered that the lustrous image stroked her hair and kissed her before saying her last goodbye. She remembered the recent dream, in which Miss Auriel had appe
ared as Saint George, the defender. How appropriate that image had been, she thought.
Lexi had only to think, to remind herself once again of her mission in coming to this dark plane, and the unnamed being turned and motioned for her to follow.
She and the beautiful creature became as one as they glided through uncharted time and space toward a blinding green light.
“We are approaching the ray of Harmony Through Conflict. It is the way that humanity chooses to learn, to balance the forces of good and evil in your world,” her guide informed her.
As they parted the veil of light, Lexi saw below her a vast field numbered with hundreds of thousands of armed men. It was as if all the fallen warriors of previous times had been called up to serve in one fantastic army of phantom soldiers. Men in armor stood shoulder to shoulder with those in loincloths or the fancy dress of the eighteenth century Prussians or the Colonial Dutch. Some appeared savage and brutal while others were refined. Yet each was idealized and beautiful, existing in a perfected state, in much the same way Lexi's counterpart was an idealization of herself.
“There are so many,” Lexi's mind expressed the thought.
“They are mere reflections of the etheric body, as I have said,” her guide responded.
Lexi watched as a new army approached, swelling the ranks by additional thousands. They arrived, marching through the wall of luminous green, piercing the cocoon that held its numberless progeny like the spores of a flower, ready to be unleashed with the first shattering crash of a purposeful wind.
An army of skeletons pushed through the membrane of light, but as they proceeded through the throng toward the center of the vortex of men, they took on human shapes and became fine, strong-shouldered men, flesh and blood, as vital as they would have been in life. As the army marched through, mingling with the others, Lexi was horrified to see the likenesses of Kurt and Helen bringing up the rear, pulled in chariots of gold and dressed in the finery of an ancient Assyrian king and queen.