The Ordeen
This female deity is the most powerful agent of the dark in Greece. She visits our world every seven years. While most other deities who use portals need the help of humans, the Ordeen does not.
The Ordeen
Little else is known about her other than she is extremely bloodthirsty.8 Her chief worshippers are maenads, but she brings other denizens of the dark through the portal with her, particularly flying lamias, demons, and fire elementals. Between them they slaughter all in their path, and the bloodshed spreads for many miles around. Few survive to record what happens during these visitations, so knowledge is limited. It’s a mercy that the County is apparently beyond her reach.
Her maenad supporters usually confine themselves to their homeland, Greece, and draw their power from a mixture of wine and blood. Under its influence they fly into a frenzy and fight their enemies with a wild fury. Sometimes they use blades, but they are phenomenally strong and can dismember enemies with their bare hands. They are slowly regressing, emotion taking over from intellect, and it is likely that they will eventually lose the power of speech and, like water witches, become more animal than human.
Although they worship the Ordeen, gathering in great numbers to await her arrival, they receive no reward for their services; after she and her followers have ravaged the land, they feast upon the blood of the dead and the dying.
The maenads have scryers but do not use mirrors. After forcing quantities of wine down the throat of a sacrificial goat, they slit open its belly and study its intestines. By such means they claim they can peer into the future.9
Pan (the Horned God)
Pan is the Old God, originally worshipped by the Greeks, who rules over nature and takes on two distinct physical forms. In one manifestation he is a boy and plays a set of reed pipes, his melodies so powerful that no birdsong can equal them and the very rocks move under their influence.
Pan
In his other form he is the terrifying deity of nature whose approach fills humans with terror—the word “panic” is derived from his name. Now his sphere of influence has widened and he is worshipped by the goat mages of Ireland. After eight days of human sacrifice, Pan passes through a portal from the dark and briefly enters the body of a goat. He distorts the shape of that animal into a thing awful to behold and drives the mages to perform more and more terrible acts of bloodshed.
Portals
These are magical doorways through which the Old Gods can pass to enter our world.10 Human intervention is usually required to make this possible, but there are four particular locations where portals may occur. These are also places where elemental spirits evolve naturally and can become sentient and powerful.
The first is the County in England, where witches have always attempted to communicate with servants of the dark, particularly the Fiend. And within the County itself, the prime place for portals is the Pendle district, where the brooding presence of the hill aids all types of dark magic.
The second is Greece, where mages and witches have communicated with the dark from ancient times, probably before such activity was observed in the County. This is the land where the Ordeen rules; she is the only one of the Old Gods who can emerge through a portal without human aid.
Thirdly, there is a district of Romania called Transylvania, known as the Land Beyond the Forest, where vampiric creatures are legion and the most powerful of the Old Gods, Siscoi (see below), rules the mountains and forests. Aided by witches, he frequently passes through a portal, but even from the dark he can possess both the living and the dead.
Fourthly, in the southwest of Ireland is a mysterious region where goat mages and Celtic witches dwell. The former worship the Old God Pan; the latter worship the Morrigan, the goddess of slaughter.
Siscoi
This powerful vampire god is frequently brought through a portal into the Romanian province of Transylvania. He is the lord of the numerous vampiric creatures that dwell in the mountains and forests of that remote region. Even from his abode in the dark, and without making use of a portal, he can send out his spirit to reanimate the dead or possess the living.
Romanian spooks have many successful methods for dealing with ordinary vampires, but they are utterly powerless against Siscoi. He is now the most active and malignant of the Old Gods, even surpassing the Ordeen in ferocity.
Siscoi sometimes animates the skin of a newly buried corpse: His minions first remove the bones and skillfully rend the skin from the muscle; the latter they devour. The reanimated corpse appears to the close relatives of the dead. Siscoi appears before his victims as the bloated skin of their loved one, filled only with air. But as he begins to feed, the corpse skin fills up with blood, turning red in the process.
Zeus
Zeus was once the leader of the Old Gods, sometimes given the title King of the Gods. Like his subjects, he once walked the earth but has not passed through a portal from the dark for many thousands of years. He is no longer worshipped widely in Greece, and his power has lessened.
Lord of the storm, controller of the sky, his preferred weapon was the thunderbolt, using lightning to incinerate his enemies. Zeus had many relationships with mortal women, who gave birth to his children. His jealous wife, Hera, punished those she discovered, among them Lamia.
Zeus
1 It is certainly true that females make the Bane nervous. In the labyrinth beneath Priestown Cathedral, Alice drove the Bane away by hissing and spitting into its face .—Tom Ward
2 Last year, the Pendle witch clans united, the three covens performing a ritual to bring the Fiend through the portal and allow him to stay in our world indefinitely. They only controlled him for two days; now he is his own master and poses the biggest threat to the County since the records in my library began. His influence upon our world is waxing, along with that of the dark. Churches lose their congregations, war grows more savage, and men forget their humanity; father is turned against son, marriages fail, and famine and disease increase.—John Gregory
3 The Fiend took on the shape of bargeman Matthew Gilbert, who was murdered by the water witch Morwena. It was impossible to tell that it wasn’t the bargeman: In appearance and voice they were identical .– Tom Ward
4 Twice in my lifetime Golgoth has awakened; both events were facilitated by a human agency—that of my former apprentice, Morgan, who used a grimoire.
5 Although my second eldest brother received the name James in the local church, my mam’s secret name for him was Hephaestus. How apt that he should grow up to follow the trade of a blacksmith! Another example of Mam’s ability to see into the future .—Tom Ward
6 Barrows are interesting and mysterious. Most probably contain more than just the bones of the dead; some surely hide powerful artifacts.—apprentice Morgan Hurst
7 When we faced the banshee witch, the Morrigan, in the shape of a crow, attacked Bill Arkwright, scratching his head with her claws. He was killed by fire elementals within one year of that attack .—Tom Ward
8 I saw the Ordeen at close quarters, and she was truly terrifying. Initially she had the form of a human female but with a rank animal smell. Her teeth appeared very sharp and her jaws powerful. But after I bound her with my silver chain, she took on her true shape —that of a huge lizard with green scales, a salamander. She spat fire and scalding steam at me, and when I tried to slay her with my staff, it burst into flames and turned into hot ash in seconds .—Tom Ward
9 Since the above entry, the Ordeen has been destroyed. As I was one of the group who brought this about, I am in a good position to record what we learned. The portal used by the Ordeen to come into this world was both breathtaking and terrifying—a pillar of fire extending from earth to sky. Through it came an immense citadel known as the Ord, many times the size of Priestown Cathedral. Within it were many traps and dangers, not the least being a multitude of fire elementals, including both translucent and opaque orbs, and also asteri.
It was the first time I’d ever seen fi
re elementals, but they behaved as other spooks have recorded, and this enabled me to fight them off, so we owe a great debt to the past. On the roof of the main structure were a large number of abhuman spirits, no doubt trapped by the Ord over aeons as it passed backward and forward through the portal.
What is truly worrying, though the threat from the Ordeen now seems to have ended, is that we did not discover how she could visit our world without human intervention. If that ability were shared by another of the Old Gods, such as Golgoth or Pan, life on earth would become even more difficult and dangerous.—John Gregory
10 I have now seen three of the Old Gods enter our world through portals. The first was Golgoth, when Morgan used a pentacle to conjure him into our world. The second was the Ordeen, who entered via her own fiery portal. The third, and perhaps the strangest, was when the banshee witch summoned the Morrigan to kill me, using her own mouth as the portal.—Bill Arkwright
A Kobalos
Mages
Human mages are the male counterparts of witches and may also be placed in the same categories—the benign, the falsely accused, the malevolent, and the unaware—but they are relatively few in number, the use of dark magic coming more naturally to the female. With the exception of goat mages they work alone.
The only nonhuman mages that have come to my attention are the Kobalos, and there is some doubt about their actual existence. But if the report I’ve heard proves to be true, one day they may pose a dangerous threat to the County as they wander farther south toward our shores.
Like witches, whatever the type of magecraft they practice, each mage varies in ability. The weakest may be no more than fairground conjurors faking most of their tricks to take coins from gullible audiences; the strongest may rule a kingdom, although often they are the hidden power behind a throne.
Mages tend to use longer and more complicated spells than witches, reading them aloud from a grimoire. They also use a pentacle, a circle encompassing a five-pointed star, at each point of which is placed a black wax candle. Such pentacles must be drawn very precisely, and the magical symbols within must also be accurate; the survival of the mage depends upon it.
He may stand at its center, safe from the demon, or Old God, that materializes beyond its protecting boundary. The danger here is that the conjured entity —brought from the dark against its will—may take revenge on innocent people nearby. Sometimes this is deliberate, the conjuring a premeditated act of violence against the mage’s enemies.
The safer alternative is when the mage stands outside the pentacle and conjures the entity to appear within it, where it is bound until dismissed.
DEALING WITH MAGES
When dealing with live mages, the techniques used to slay or confine witches usually prove successful— except for salt and iron, which have no effect at all.
A malevolent mage is a servant of the dark and may be bound with a silver chain or slain with a silver-alloy blade. Rowan wood can also cause some mages severe pain, while others have a tolerance for it. A spook has some degree of immunity against magecraft, but the struggle can become physical: When threatened, most mages quickly resort to extreme violence.
Unlike witches, dead malevolent mages are not bone bound and cannot leave their graves. Their spirits pass through limbo to their natural home in the dark. Some mages do live extraordinarily long lives, and indeed much of their magic is designed to achieve that end; while malevolent witches accept death through natural old age, knowing they have a physical existence beyond the grave where they will still be able to satisfy their blood lust.
Merlin
Merlin is perhaps the most famous mage of all, the power behind the throne of Arthur, a warlike Celtic king. Merlin had a human mother, but his father was reportedly a demon, and from him he inherited magical powers, including the ability to shift his shape into different people or even animals.
In later life he increased his existing power by learning to use the energy of a dragon, which is a very dangerous thing to do. He then fell in love with the witch Nimueh, who pried out his magical secrets, drained him of power, and used it against him. She trapped Merlin within the aura of a powerful dragon. He still sleeps and will remain there until the end of the world.
Merlin
TYPES OF MAGES
Goat Mages
Goat mages dwell in Ireland and derive their power through Pan magic, routinely sacrificing goats to that Old God.1 The idea is that, through worship and blood letting, Pan will grant them power. Fortunately, Pan is unreliable, and the mage is more likely to be driven insane. When, on occasion, Pan does reward the mage, the power received is used with unpredictable and devastating effects. (Pan magic is akin to madness.)
Goat mages have a major annual event, which is very sinister and dangerous. A goat is tethered to a high platform and worshipped for a week and a day. Human beings are sacrificed to the cloven-hoofed creature, which is gradually possessed by Pan, the horned god. Soon the goat acquires the power of speech, stands upon its hind legs, and grows larger, dominating the proceedings and demanding more and more sacrifices.
A Goat Mage
The power derived from those eight days of bloodshed lasts the mages for almost a year. Some years Pan is not contacted and the mages must flee, scattering themselves to the winds. They are then totally vulnerable, and their enemies, a federation of landowners to the southwest of that land, hunt them down. But in a good year, when their power is in the ascendancy, they are greatly feared. Then they travel unchecked, seek out their enemies, and put them to death, stealing their land and wealth. The goat mages and the federation are in a perpetual state of war.
Kobalos Mages
The Kobalos are not human. They walk upright but have the appearance of a fox or a wolf. The body is covered with dark hair; the face and hands are shaved according to custom; and the mage wears a long black coat with a slit in the back to accommodate his tail, which can function as an extra limb.
These mages are solitary creatures who shun their fellow citizens and usually dwell beyond the fringes of the frozen Kobalos domain, which is far to the north of the continent known as Europa. Each one “farms” a haizda, a territory that he has marked out as his own. Within it there are several hundred humans, living in hamlets, villages, and farms. He rules by fear and magecraft, harvesting souls and accumulating power. He usually lives in an old, gnarled ghanbala tree, sleeping by day but traveling the boundaries of his haizda by night, taking the blood of humans and animals for sustenance. He can shift his shape, taking on the appearance of animals, and can also vary his size. This type of mage is also a formidable warrior whose favorite weapon is a sabre.
The Kobalos are a fierce, warlike race who, with the exception of their mages, inhabit Valkarky, a city deep within the arctic circle.
The name Valkarky means the City of the Petrified Tree; it is filled with all types of abominations that have been created by dark magic. Its walls are constructed and renewed by creatures that never sleep; creatures that spit soft stone from their mouths. The Kobalos believe that their city will not stop growing until it covers the entire world.2
The Kobalos
Necromancers
While a spook deals with the unquiet dead as a routine part of his job, talking to them and sending them on their way to the light, a necromancer does the opposite.3 He often uses a grimoire, a book of spells and rituals, and binds the dead so that they serve his purposes and help him to line his pockets with silver. The bereaved will pay hard-earned money for a brief conversation—or even a glimpse of their loved ones.
He also uses the dead as spies and to terrorize his enemies. Most often it is just a case of trapping graveside lingerers, or those bound to their bones, because they’ve committed some terrible crime.
Rarely, some very powerful necromancers can trap the dead in limbo and stop them from reaching the light; they can then summon them at will into the presence of the living. Initially this is done by means of a pentacle, which is chalked
on the floor, making sure that all five points of the star are of equal length and that a black candle4 is positioned upon each one. After the correct spell has been cast, reading accurately from the grimoire, the lost soul appears in the pentacle and is trapped there until the necromancer has completed further spells of binding.5 The soul is then dismissed and goes back into limbo, with no chance of finding its way to the light. After this, the pentacle is no longer required and the necromancer can summon the ghost to his side with a simple command.
MORGAN’S FIRST ATTEMPT TO RAISE GOLGOTH
My apprentice Morgan had many faults, but the two worst were laziness and an extreme lust for power. He was approaching the end of the third year of his apprenticeship when he attempted something that could have had terrible consequences for the inhabitants of the County and beyond.
At the time he was tall and strong for his sixteen years, and already giving me much cause for concern. As well as the two serious faults listed above, he was rebellious and imperious, always believing that he was right. It all came to a head when we were staying at my winter house in Anglezarke.
The Hursts, a family who had fostered Morgan until he was almost thirteen, also lived nearby, and theirs was a tragic tale. Within a year of his return, he and their daughter Eveline had fallen in love. Although they weren’t blood relatives, the parents considered them to be brother and sister and reacted violently, beating both children and making their lives unbearable. As a result, the distraught Eveline drowned herself in the miserable stretch of gray water that borders their farm.