Back in the church, Louis was standing over Daniel, looking paranoid. When Othman emerged from the vestry, Louis jumped at the sound of his voice. ‘There is nothing to be afraid of, I assure you.’
Louis stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘It’s an eerie old place.’
Othman shrugged. ‘If you say so. Sit down.’
Louis obeyed.
‘If it will make you feel any better, I shall invoke some protection for you. After all, we don’t want anyone poking their noses in, do we?’
Louis shook his head.
Othman put his hands upon the wall and bowed his head. He visualised a glowing cloak of protection around the building, so that should anyone have the intention of approaching it, they would turn away, walk past, not even think of opening the lych gate. As he did this, Othman was surprised himself at how powerful he felt. Over the past couple of days he’d felt drained, weak. Now, it was as if some inner source was filling him with energy. He was still aware of the void deep within his mind, but he had lived with that for as long as he could remember. Was it possible that what he’d do in this place would close up that void for ever? He needed to believe it.
‘Now, I must go,’ he said. ‘Do not leave the building. I shall be as quick as I can.’
‘Will you send Barbara up here?’ Louis’ request was hopeful.
Othman felt a twinge of sympathy. ‘I shall call her from the Winters’ cottage. But if she comes here, you must not be too intimate with her. I don’t want any stray sexual energy thrumming around. Do you understand?’
Louis nodded.
‘Good. Give me your car keys.’
Louis rummaged in his pocket and handed them over.
‘I shall be back before nightfall,’ Othman said.
As he drove back down to the village, he considered for a few brief moments that he could now drive off anywhere, free himself from whatever he’d taken on by coming to this place. What is holding me here? he wondered. It was of no consequence to him, really, whether the power of the Murkaster flame was reactivated or not. He had seen many flames in his life, passed through them unscathed. Closed gateways, every one. Many times, he had attempted to call upon powers, which he directed to ‘open the gate’, although he had no idea of what would happen should any of his instincts become reality. He could not think about it, only act. Trying to analyse himself, or his motives, simply caused his head to fill with white noise that prevented thought.
The car purred up to the Winters’ cottage, and Othman parked it behind Owen’s vehicle on the driveway. The Perks boy was still sitting on the lawn, a grudging sentinel. Othman ignored him and went into the house, where Emma and Lily were drinking tea. Emma’s hand was placed over Lily’s. Clearly, some comforting had been going on.
‘Do you have any materials with which to make incense?’ Othman asked Emma. ‘Something simple to purify, frankincense, sandalwood and myrrh.’
Emma smiled. ‘Do you think I ever neglected my worship? I still have a few ingredients back at my daughter’s house.’
‘Good. Go and fetch them. Also, some animal fat, and any candles you might have.’
Emma stood up. ‘This sounds urgent.’
Othman said nothing until she had left the house. Then he asked Lily, ‘Has Owen stirred?’
She shook her head. ‘No, he’s still sleeping.’ Her brow was creased into a frown that looked as if it had been there all day. ‘I’m worried about him, Pev. How can he sleep this long?’
‘You have nothing to worry about,’ Othman said. He sat down opposite her at the table, reached for her hands. ‘Poor Lily. Be at rest.’ With one hand, he stroked her brow and the frown faded.
Tears came to her eyes. She took Othman’s hand and kissed it. ‘I love you,’ she said.
Emma returned in twenty minutes with a bagful of ingredients, and Lily’s kitchen became a workshop for incense making. Othman called Barbara Eager and told her to take some food and a flask of coffee up to Louis at the church, then went into the parlour to watch TV, while Emma directed operations.
‘What is this all for?’ Lily whispered.
‘His ritual,’ Emma answered. ‘He seems to want everything to be just right.’
Emma pounded some of the incense mixture into a fine powder, which she blended with animal fat. When this was done, Othman appeared from the parlour and gave her some of his haoma mix to add to the ointment. Emma had collected nearly two dozen candles of assorted colours, while Lily found a couple of boxes of plain white candles under the sink for use during power cuts. All her good candles were half used. ‘We shall need more,’ Othman told Emma. ‘But you’ll have to get some tomorrow now.’
The candles, incense and ointment were packed carefully into a carrier bag by Emma, along with a couple of Lily’s rather scratchy towels. Before he left them, Othman kissed each woman. ‘Keep a vigil over Owen tonight,’ he said.
‘Will you be back?’ Lily asked him.
‘Later. Perhaps.’
The light was fading from the land by the time Othman parked the Daimler outside St Shem’s. This was the time of power; he could feel it vibrating in the air around him. The soul of the boy burned with a white luminance within the church. Soon, it would blaze like a beacon fire.
Othman dismissed Barbara Eager as soon as he entered the building. She was sitting with Louis on one of the pews, holding his hands. Othman was satisfied to note that Louis pulled his hands away from her and directed his full attention upon Othman as soon as he made an appearance.
Once Barbara had gone, they lifted Daniel and carried him down to the bathing room, Louis wincing at the shadows. Othman lit candles around the pool and extinguished the electric light. Now the room became magical, the patterns of the moving waters rippling across the walls. Othman disrobed Daniel with his own hands, his fingers lingering at the places where the skin was broken and bruised. Then he lifted the boy in his arms. Daniel moaned and moved his limbs slowly as Othman waded into the pool. He lowered Daniel tenderly into the water, which was not yet quite at the temperature of living blood. A memory surfaced in Othman’s mind: the ritual bath, the eyes of a boy, trusting, the scent of earth, the sensing of the weight of mountains pressing down from above. As if this memory was the first gate to many, he became aware of a parade of images, waiting to reveal themselves to his inner eye. His first instinct was to push them back, which he did, but not before the face of Taziel Levantine, feral and screaming, reared up before him. Othman closed his eyes. Louis said, ‘What is it?’
Othman shuddered. ‘Nothing. A bad memory.’ But now it was painful to touch Daniel’s skin. He stood up and came out of the pool, dripping water across the ancient flagstones. ‘You do it,’ he said to Louis. ‘Bathe your son.’ He went to sit on the wooden bench that circled the wall the of the room. He could hear Louis making small, aggrieved noises as he got his trousers wet in the pool. Othman rested his head against the cool, damp wall, and closed his eyes. Suddenly, he felt weary. He remembered, then, a dream.
It came to him on a wave of scent, the cut corn, the smoke of votive pyres, the sunset red and purple across the wide sky, and the mountains in sharp relief against it. The dwellings. The high dwellings, with their great stones. His house. There was a room, where chaos had walked across the threshold. He saw a boy, his personal seer, cowering in fear and terror, and the coals were spilled from the brazier across the carpets. The boy was calling out in fear, because the elders had sent their Serafim to take his lord, his master, from this place, to another place, where the earth gaped with sores and running wounds of fire. The boy would be left alone, then, with no-one to protect him, perhaps sacrificed as a creature of the sinful. Othman saw the eyes of the boy, heard the voice crying, ‘Master!’, but it was too late, far too late, and he knew then that a curse had come from the boy’s lips; he had cursed her, cursed her name, her soul, sealed it with his grief.
She.
Her veiled face, the image of an ache behind his heart and eyes. Her
beauty, coming from the inside of her, covering her with a glow. Her voice. Give it all to me. Give me knowledge for my mind is hungry. Fill the belly of my mind. And he had done so.
‘Ishtahar.’
Othman jerked upright, the echo of a name, whispered aloud, fleeing from his mind. Had he been sleeping?
‘It is done.’ Louis was standing on the edge of the pool, having draped Daniel against the side. The boy’s eyes were open; he was blinking at the waters.
Othman stood up, momentarily disoriented. He could sense Louis’ attention and, not wishing to betray any sign of weakness, pulled himself up to his full height. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Louis cower. Satisfied, he chanted, ‘Rise, Daniel.’
The boy stared up at Othman with defeated eyes. It was clear that he feared death at that moment.
‘There is nothing to fear,’ Othman told him. ‘Nothing. I will bring you bliss.’
He could tell Daniel did not believe him, but what did that matter? There would be proof for the boy soon enough.
Othman picked up a towel, and signalled Louis to drag Daniel from the water. Between them, they wrapped the boy in the towel and led him back out into the ante-chamber. Here, Othman bade him lie down on the bench against the wall. Daniel said nothing, clearly believing there was no way he could change his unknown fate. Othman admired the boy’s saintly composure, his innocent dignity. He knew he had made the right choice.
The ante-chamber was also lit by candles, which threw leaping shadows up into the dome of the ceiling. Othman had laid out the incense, lighting materials and the jar of ointment on a stone ledge which jutted out from the wall. Now, he lit the incense, and the powdery, silver smoke reached out to the walls. Louis flapped a hand before his face.
Othman glared at him. ‘You may go back into the church or remain here,’ he said. ‘The choice is yours. But you will learn more by remaining.’
‘Bit smoky,’ Louis muttered, but he did not leave.
Othman leaned over Daniel. It was time to induce the sacred trance and guide Daniel bodily into it. Thereafter, by careful dosing with haoma through the skin, the boy could be kept in that state until the following evening. Daniel stared up at Othman with wide, defiant eyes. Still, he said nothing, clutching the towel together at his throat. Othman maintained the eye contact as he began to unbutton his shirt. He noticed Daniel’s expression change subtly as he realised what would happen. Othman saw the boy’s throat move as he swallowed reflexively. Yes, he thought, you know, don’t you.
‘Are you afraid I’ll hurt you?’ he murmured. ‘Don’t be. I shall cast fear out from you.’
Daniel made no response, but merely watched with anxious eyes as Othman finished undressing. At first, he attempted to resist when Othman reached out to pull the towel from his grasp. Then, he closed his eyes, and his hand dropped in submission. Othman could tell he intended to remove himself from the proceedings, powerless to avoid the inevitable, but refusing to be a collaborator. Othman smoothed Daniel’s cool skin, still damp from the water. Then he took down the ointment from the ledge.
Anointed, Daniel’s body gleamed in the soft, moving candlelight. He looked like a carving of polished wood, so still. Othman lifted him and placed him on the floor in the centre of the room. Louis uttered a cough, which prompted Othman’s head to snap upwards. ‘Silence!’ Louis dropped his eyes.
Othman circled the room, uttering a virtually inaudible invocation. At various points, he made complicated hand gestures. As he circled, he became aroused, transforming himself into the representation of a priapic demiurge.
Daniel lay with his eyes shut tight. He could feel the mounting power around him, familiar and yet so alien. He could hear the sound of Othman’s feet padding round him on the stone floor, which sounded more like the clopping of hooves. If he surrendered himself, he would be lost, yet the urge to surrender was great. He tried to think of Owen, to conjure his lover’s face before his mind’s eye as a protection. He wanted to keep some part of himself intact, his consciousness, his personality. Yet when the demon touched him, with the most subtle and gentle of caresses, when the kiss came to him, which was the archetypal kiss, it was impossible to keep hold of the past. All that existed was the present moment, which stripped him of his will. The demon had anointed itself with haoma, the seducing poison. There was no pain as it invaded Daniel’s body, only a sense of coldness and a rushing sound in his ears like water crashing in the distance or flames devouring dried wood. A smell of ozone and ripened corn insinuated itself beneath the cloak of the incense.
Daniel went backwards in time, saw the brazier fall, the coals scatter. He cried out, ‘Master! My Lord Shemyaza!’ They pulled the man away from him, the butt of a spear thrust into the small of his back. The pain was sudden and intense. He rolled over, saw them dragging his master away. He was looking at his own death, at the time when his violated body would be thrown into the pit on top of the corpse of the man he adored, and the stones would come to crush the life from him. Daniel wept, his heart full of grief and love.
Daniel’s consciousness snapped back into the present. He reached for the hand of the demon who rode him, held it tight until his nails broke the skin. He had already learned that sex conjured images in his head, and this time they were unbelievably vivid. He sensed that the man who possessed him wore the aspect of a demon like a garment. Within, in ignorance, he was a being of light, and the commerce of their flesh was sacred. If Daniel concentrated on this aspect, it became more real in his mind. He felt elated. This was too much to be borne, for he knew it would be the first and last time.
Then, the visions came flooding back, and time had twisted around him once more. He was being led, bound, along a stony path to the lip of a valley of fire. He had been kept in confinement for seven days, while his master had been tortured. This much, his guards had told him. He had also learned that Shemyaza’s confederates in crime had fled, taking their human women with them, although their freedom would undoubtedly be short-lived. The High Lord Anu was enraged, and his wrath burned cities and destroyed continents.
At the lip of fire, Daniel saw they had brought forth the woman responsible for his master’s fall from grace. Ishtahar. No doubt her family had surrendered her, seeking to appease the High Lord’s anger and avert his vengeance on their children. Ishtahar’s hands were chained with gold before her belly, which was the cauldron of her power, the way to the stargate. Her eyes were wild.
Daniel screamed, ‘Why did you do this? Why?’
And she answered. ‘They did this, not me! It is their cruel laws! I want only to be allowed to love him!’
How could he curse her? It was impossible. What the master loved, he loved.
In the valley below, the Serafim soldiers ripped Shemyaza’s clothes from his body. He stood tall and unafraid, even though he must know they meant to kill him. His body was marked with the tongue of the lash, his face bruised and swollen beyond recognition. Daniel’s heart contracted at the sight of his master’s familiar shape, which he knew so well. I will find you again, though it might take many life-times, and when I do, I will save you from harm. This I swear.
Roughly, the Serafim threw Shemyaza to the ground and bound him in rope, which was dyed green to represent the coils of the cosmic serpent. They tied the end of the rope around one of Shemyaza’s ankles, and from there looped it over the arm of a gibbet, which lay in the hot dust beside him. Daniel wanted to look away as the gibbet was raised and swung out over the wound in the earth, where acrid, searing fires and lethal fumes gouted upwards. It was too terrible a death to witness, but he also felt he owed it to his lord to suffer the sight of his execution. His own death would follow soon enough.
He and Ishtahar were forced to watch the burning, forced to smell it, hear their beloved’s cries. Daniel could not tell how long it took his master to die, only that it was too long. Before Shemyaza’s body had finished shuddering and jerking at the end of the rope, the Serafim had begun to dig a pit, in unblessed
ground beside the fissure of fire, where presently the body would be cast, perhaps still possessing a faint vestige of life. Daniel knew that as soon as Shemyaza had been transferred to the pit, he himself would be thrown into it alive. Then the Serafim would fill the makeshift grave with heavy stones, and Daniel would be crushed to death as the closest minion of the Fallen One. Because of his association with the disgraced Shemyaza, no other lord or lady would speak out for him, or take him on as seer. Whatever their feelings on the matter, they would not risk incurring the wrath of the High Lord Anu, who had been offended by Shemyaza’s actions. Instead, they would watch Daniel the innocent die a criminal’s death. Strangely, Daniel felt no fear or dread. There was little point. His fate was inevitable, and he could only accept it. Also, what point was there in living once Shemyaza was dead? He had only to look upon Ishtahar’s face to glean the answer to that.
At the last moment, when the pit was still being dug and the seconds streaming away towards the time when Daniel would be cast down to join his master in a final embrace, Ishtahar reached out for him with her chained hands. The wrists were bleeding. Her eyes called to him as she struggled against the ones who held her. He knew she wanted to take hold of him, go with him to the place where he would die. But they would not allow it. Her punishment was to live. They needed her to live, for she had power greater than any human woman one before her. Through her desire for knowledge, she had created herself anew. Now that this new self existed in the world the Anannage would take advantage of it and use it.