Circle of Nine: Circle of Nine Trilogy 1 (26 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

A
s our ilkamas neared the borders of Headhunter territory, Khartyn related for my benefit the history of the three Crones who dwelled there.

The sisters were derived from the dark aspect of the Great Mother. Many moontimes ago the Headhunter Crones lived in profusion in Eronth. As a consequence of their gruesome spiritual ritual of collecting heads from all life that was unfortunate enough to encounter them, the goddesses had decided after much meditation to banish the Headhunters to the Wastelands, mainly to protect the Faiaite children.

The
Tremite Book of Life
hinted that the Headhunter Crones had existed even before Eronth had emerged from the Shell. Only three sisters had remained from their original abundant population and so were considered as deserving special protection in their banishment. Despite their macabre habit, they were revered in Eronth, and were widely written about, sung about and used to threaten unruly children. Few people had survived a meeting with them, however. The lucky survivors of meeting up with the Crones had survived only by using their wits. The sisters communicated to each other by clicking, an odd sound that they made by slapping their lips together. When they attempted to use the Tongue of All Worlds, they used simple rhymes. No-one knew why the Headhunters spoke this way. It was a common joke among the Eronthites that the rhymes were a result of the Headhunters’ banishment in the Wastelands. Bored with so few heads to take, they were reduced to trying to upstage each other with wordplay.

‘All who pass through the Wastelands must encounter the Headhunters,’ Khartyn said.

I looked listlessly around the barren countryside as we rode.

If it would stop my tormented thoughts, they are welcome to my head.

As if accepting the invitation, the Crone sisters materialised on the spiralling dirt track. The ilkamas snorted and began tossing their heads fearfully. Wind blew the heavy skirts of the sisters and I was amazed at how ancient the trio appeared to be. Khartyn looked almost a teenager by comparison. The skin of all three was parched and dry, and the wind blew little bits of skin into the air as it breathed gently upon them.

Their hair was white and worn pulled up into tight, high buns. Their small oval faces were identically crisscrossed with wrinkles and lines. Age and decay were the perfumes that the pores of their skin breathed. Their extraordinary elongated necks were lined with wrinkles like the stumps of trees. They wore high-buttoned dresses with heavy velvet skirts sweeping the ground. One wore a dress of blood-red, one of forest-green and one mustard-yellow. Ethereal as cobwebs, insubstantial as the death of a shadow, they nonetheless emitted a chillingly otherworldly aura.

Khartyn raised a hand in salutation.

‘Blessings to you, Esmir! Jamis! Citti! Merry meet! We ask permission of our sacred sisters to continue our journey through the Wastelands.’

The trio looked excitedly at each other. I watched incredulously as their withered, toothless mouths jabbered frantically in their native clicking tongue, which almost immediately began to translate into English.

‘Why, sisters dear! The wind has blown us a treat so rare — three heads so fair! Oh, they’ll prove far finer in our basket than head of rat or hare!’

I noted for the first time the cumbersome straw basket they carried between them and I shuddered. Khartyn dismounted from her ilkama and despite Rosedark’s protests walked toward the trio.

‘I bring you a gift of something finer than this withered neck of mine. For each of you I present the gift of finest Faia swine.’

The sisters gibbered excitedly as Khartyn reached into the bag she carried and solemnly presented to each eager and appreciative sister a severed pig’s head. The heads quickly disappeared into the raffia basket and the three Headhunters made a parting between them, indicating the ilkamas should pass. They trotted between the Crones rapidly and began to canter at Khartyn’s urging lest the Crones should decide to hunt our heads after all.

‘Don’t be fooled by the look of them!’ Khartyn shouted. ‘They can snap off a grown man’s head with their bare hands. If they had decided they really desired us, we would have been staring at those swine heads in the basket.’

*

As evening began to fall my morose state and the ilkamas’ exhaustion became increasingly obvious to Khartyn. Eventually she indicated we should rest for the night at a small clearing by the side of the road.

‘We will reach the castle by mid morn,’ she declared, ‘and we need to be fully rested and alert before we meet with Sati and Ishran.’

I heard her words as if in a dream. I had no desire to meet with Sati. I realised I had begun to distrust Khartyn’s motives in taking me to consult with the couple. I began to seriously think about escaping from her. I had no desire to expose my unborn child to danger, and I sensed danger was eagerly anticipating our arrival in the forbidding towers of the dark castle looming ahead of us.

Suddenly terrified that Khartyn would read my mind, I busied myself with grooming Jabi, concentrating only on his breathing and the rhythmic stroke of the brush against his flanks. Then, happy to put a short distance between myself and the Crone, I searched for small pieces of wood with Rosedark for a camp fire.

‘Are you worried about meeting with Ishran and Sati?’ Rosedark asked as we worked together at breaking larger twigs down.

‘Yes,’ I admitted, feeling honesty was the best form of defence.

‘And I too!’ Rosedark avoided my eyes. ‘I’ve not heard of anyone able to penetrate their castle before. I feel very afraid, Emma.’

‘Why are you doing it then?’ I asked bluntly. ‘I know you’re the Crone’s apprentice and she’s incredibly powerful and everything, but wouldn’t she understand if you refused to go?’

Rosedark stared at me, shocked, with her beautiful childlike eyes.

‘I’m doing it for you, Emma!’ she exclaimed. ‘Because I love and honour you! Anyway,’ she admitted, ‘Khartyn would sharp-tongue me if I refused to journey with you.’

Saddened, I gathered my small bundle of twigs.

That’s it
, I vowed to myself,
I’m out of here tonight.

There was no way I could justify putting Rosedark at risk as well.

*

Dinner that night was an exotic stew of mushrooms and nuts. The three of us were subdued and spoke little as we ate. The incredible realisation of the imminent confrontation silenced all superfluous conversation.

Later, under the night sky, coiled up on my small gold rug, I lay listening to the snorts of the ilkamas and watched the stars move across the sky. I was practising making my mind a blank. I lay for what seemed like decades, refusing to give into the temptation to sleep my misery away. Rosedark had fallen asleep instantly, as she always did, curled up like a child beside me, gently snoring.

The Crone had spent hours protecting us with her magical circle ritual and I had feared that she would be up all night, preparing for the onslaught against the Azephim. But with relief I finally heard the deep breathing of her sleep from the blanket where she lay. After another interminable wait, I cautiously stood up. I was still dressed in my clothes of the day for warmth against the chill of the earth, and so all I had to do was pull my boots on quickly. Terrified that Khartyn would wake up, I tiptoed away from the sleeping bodies. Then I hit some kind of invisible barrier, and sprang back in pain and surprise. Tears of frustration sprang to my eyes at being foiled so easily. Not only did Khartyn’s protective circle prevent unwanted intruders from entering our space, it also effectively prevented the occupants of the circle from leaving! Desperately I pushed against it, but the thought pattern held strong. Physically I could get nowhere by pushing against it. It was equal to pushing against a solid concrete wall. Then with a force I had not been aware that I possessed, I began to mentally pit my strength against the barrier. To my delight, I felt the barrier shift a little. Sweat broke out on my face as I pushed harder and harder. My mind appeared to shift into another gear, another dimension. It was literally as if a door had opened in my mind. Then I was through.

I began to run madly into the night, ecstatic and panicked by my sudden freedom. I ran right into the delighted arms of a small pack of silent, patient Solumbi. I screamed. They circled me hungrily as I looked on with helpless horror. It was Rosedark who awoke to my screams and ran out of the circle to my assistance. The Crone was far away from her physical body; relocated in the recesses of the Shell, she was unable to hear the screams. It was Rosedark whom the starving Solumbi turned on greedily, unable to penetrate me while I wore Artemis’ garter. Rosedark had no such protection and the ravenous beasts lunged at the vulnerable apprentice’s throat, ripping the soft flesh to pieces and feeding on her blood with disgusting relish.

Screaming for the Crone, I ran back inside the circle and shook her urgently until I saw her spirit reanimate her form. Khartyn quickly grasped the situation; I didn’t have to utter a word. She ran from the circle with enormous bands of light emanating from her hands, and I followed her, terrified and shocked. Nausea gripped my entire being when I saw the jerking, dying body of the apprentice in the arms of the hairy, beast-like Solumbi.

Khartyn, with the light streaming from her hands, drew a gigantic pentacle into the night sky which illuminated the entirety of the Wastelands. It was now as if we were in broad daylight.

‘All evil is turned back!’ she screamed, causing an enormous earth tremor to split the land beneath us. Unbelievingly, I watched as thousands of tiny animals and beings ran from where we stood. Even the great beasts hungrily chewing on Rosedark dropped their morsels and, snarling, crawled away. The Crone ran to the bloody body of her apprentice.

‘She’s gone!’ she sobbed in an unearthly agonised cry. In the background behind me, I could feel Hecate’s presence waiting to enter. A huge scream of agony rose within me as Khartyn lovingly rocked the torn body of her apprentice back and forth. The once-beautiful golden hair was now soaked with gore.

Then the impossible happened. From its nest of grief and sadness, loneliness and pain, a small sparrow flew from my chest. I felt no pain as it exited and flew to the broken body of Rosedark. It began to sing a song so sacred and so holy that I forgot all my pain and grief over Rosedark’s death. I forgot all my confusion and anger about my identity, my fears about the Wastelands and my role in meeting with the Dark Angels. All that I knew with the sparrow’s hymn was Beauty.

I saw, with crystal clarity, the beauty in all things. The meaning of the seemingly insignificant, the holiness of every cell of life, the light that existed within all; all these things were laid before me. The glory of the life that appeared so mundane radiated in all directions. It was like the song of the Shell that could form words and breathe creativity. Khartyn, too, was entranced by the sparrow’s song. Unashamed tears of joy fell from her eyes and in those poignant fleeting moments of the sparrow’s song she became the young girl that forever dwelt within the Crone. Magically, Rosedark opened her eyes to hear the song of the bird that lured her from the arms of Hecate, whose rage could be plainly heard. Undaunted by death itself, the sparrow sang on.

When the colour had returned to Rosedark’s cheeks and her ravaged throat had miraculously healed, the sparrow circled her auric body once more and flew quickly back into my chest. I could feel the heat of the bird’s body as it dived back into my heart. Half-crying, half-laughing, Khartyn pulled Rosedark to her feet.

‘Hecate won’t speak to me for a while!’ she laughed, hugging her apprentice. ‘She has been cheated of a sweet prize indeed! And I have you back with me, my beloved daughter. Thank you, Goddess!

‘Nay,’ she added, correcting herself, ‘thank Emma. For tonight she gave her soul to you.’

*

Camouflaged in her bird form, Sati’s dark eyes glinted as she watched closely from an overhead tree. Never before had she seen a Crossa release their sparrow voluntarily and still live. Her breath came in quickened pants through her beak. The Crossa was regaining more power than Sati had envisaged; thanks to the Crone’s influence she was awakening daily. She had wasted no time in opening her legs to the Stag Man and now she carried within her his foul seed. Tomorrow they would reach the castle and demand an audience with the Azephim Lord.

They had underestimated Emma, she realised, recalling with distaste the moment when the Crossa had let her soul free to awaken the dead apprentice. Destroying her was not going to be as easy as she had anticipated. Jealousy reared within Sati’s belly, its thick green body threatening to overwhelm her with nausea. It was unfathomable to her that the Crossa had so effortlessly secured the seed that the Horned One had shot within her. Sati had lost count of the number of Crones that she had summoned to the castle for guidance on how to conceive Ishran’s precious black seed. The magical elixirs they had prescribed she had drunk eagerly enduring the foul tastes of the hags’ brews. When they had not worked, she had rubbed the fertility oils over her distressingly flat stomach three times daily for endless Turns of the Wheel. She had even resorted to dancing naked in the Circle of the Blessed Nine, rubbing her body over the Bwani stone in a pathetic, futile hope that her wish would be granted. Sati still hissed with anger when she remembered the vile practices that the senile Crones had prescribed. Their ancient bodies now lined her dungeon walls, a grotesque, bony reminder in the room as a warning to all false soothsayers.

Perhaps Khartyn would have been able to prescribe the remedy to produce the miracle, but Sati feared that Khartyn would tell her that her womb was barren, unable to contain the black seed of the angel. Rather, all of Sati’s hopes pointed to the Eom. From her dreams she had surmised that if the Eom was reactivated there would be life inside her womb. Ishran had recounted many tales from his childhood in the Web and Sati had realised there was no limit to the power of Eom. Her wing stretched awkwardly to touch her belly lightly and she uttered a silent prayer — a prayer that Eom energy would enter her and bring her cold womb back into hot life.