Chapter 19: Rescue

21 September 1974, Behind the Ivory Veil

TWINKLE, TWINKLE, little star. Wesley plinked out the notes, concentrating as he had at the old upright in his grandmother’s living room more than forty years ago. He cringed as he missed a note. Determined, he began again, his focus intent on only the keyboard in front of him.

In fact, the room around him was little more than a cartoon drawing. Gone were the bookshelves, paintings, instruments, leather furniture ... His life existed of no more than the keyboard as he struggled to remember.

“Let it go. Be at peace.”

Wesley started at the voice and turned to see a naked woman standing beside the keyboard. The rest of the piano was a mere shadow.

“You’re here. Will I finally awaken from this nightmare?”

“You are awake.”

“Where have you been?”

“Within.”

“I ... I can’t remember. My world is dissolving to nothing.”

“If you cannot accept what you have found, you will find nothing at all.”

“Nothing? Am I dead?”

“Life and death have no meaning here. What you desired you drew forth from yourself. When knowledge fails you, you have only faith to sustain you.”

“You are not going to leave me?”

“How can I forsake myself? Look.” She pointed to the line drawing of a window against a blank wall. Outside, Wesley could see flames.

“They are setting my world on fire,” he sighed.

“There is no they, Wesley. There is only one.”

“We must go. Go north to the Temple of Aurora Borealis.”

“We will go together.”

“Who are you? Really?”

“Wesley, my love. Did you think only the goddess Serepte was confined behind the veil? I am the goddess within you. Set me free.”

They walked.

North.

21 September 1974, Carles Castlerigg Stone Circle

Sixteen men and women chanted the Mabon ritual as they held hands around the fire at the great stone circle Carles Castlerigg. Autumnal Equinox. They were all who remained of the once vibrant coven. Four more were in America holding the four sacred tools of the coven as the circle awaited the forging of a new cauldron. None had expected the five years it had taken to get this far. Many fell away from the fellowship. Some of the aging members had passed over or were simply too frail to join the others in the outdoor rituals.

The lean times and the fat were not unknown to the circle. A millennium of history showed times when there were scarcely enough members to hold the sacred tools. When they battled the dark forces of Hitler, there had been nearly a hundred, many joining from other circles in Britain.

The Hart, their high priestess, was off in Greece and had sworn not to return until the veil between the worlds had been torn asunder and her husband returned to her.

They chanted the Mabon ritual, different coveners taking up different lines as they gathered power around them.

What was will be. What will be is.
All time comes together, here and now in this sacred space.
Dream of your rebirth.
I shall be here to greet thee on thy return.
Between the worlds we stand in this sacred space.
All time is now.
All places are here.
From whence we came, we shall return,
And come again.
And come again.

The circle continued to sway and hum, a word emerging from their toneless meditation.

North.

The circle opened and faced the great northern gate of Carles Castlerigg as if expecting someone new to enter.

21 September 1974, West Virginia

Prometheus, The Bound, emerged from his home secreted in an abandoned coal mine. He climbed slowly to the top of his little mountain, glad for the thermal underwear he had thought to wear beneath his black robe.

After forty years as a solitaire—a witch without a coven—and sometime hermit, he wondered if he should have stayed in the monastery in Greece. He did miss the presence of others at times, even if they seldom spoke. He maintained the rigid schedule and physical exercise in his retirement. Each week he walked the five miles to town for groceries. It was his opportunity to see people, pick up mail, and to be recognized.

But even in his isolation, Wayne’s great-uncle, Elbert Parker, had taken his vows seriously. To protect, help, and defend my sisters and brothers of the Art. The network had been carefully woven. All those who had a part to play were gathered together on this Autumnal Equinox, no matter where they were scattered. Whatever role was his to play, he would be ready on the astral plane.

He lit his little fire and settled in to wait as he meditated. Facing north.

21 September 1974, The Showbox, Minneapolis

The audience was transfixed. Mark spared little thought as to what they were seeing. Or thought they saw. He and the strange girl dressed in black leather faced the direction in which the others had vanished as if they anchored the open gate so they could return.

Judith had called her friend Lil ‘The Iron Gate.’ In Mark’s mind he would have called her The Flaming Sword. She stood steadfastly with a sword of fire extending half in this world and half in the next. It had been many years since Mark had last witnessed the power of the ancient ones. They had spoken to him.

Go in peace. Leave this to your son. Go where your heart leads you.

Mark thought the command only referred to his marriage to Helen, but now his heart led him to extend his arm in reflection of Lil’s—to hold the gate open for his son.

A flaming sword appeared in his hand extending across the world divide.

Extending and pointing North.

21 September 1974, The City of the Gods

Paul Mansfield, The Great Paris. Apollo ‘Pol’ Pariskovopolis. How strange that his chosen names should be so close to his given name. Memories flooded his mind. He grew up in Greece, played in Athens and in The Metéora. He swam at their island retreat in the Aegean Sea. He climbed Mount Olympus, both the peak in Greece and the legendary home of the gods. His grandfather lived and died in The Metéora of Thessaly.

And he had been swept away in the flashflood of the stream that had been his gateway to other worlds.

When he awoke, he was a child with no past. His hands remembered the sleight of hand he practiced as a boy and the strange, otherworldly language that transported him to the edge of his memory before it fled.

He lived two lives, was two people wrapped in one, and now seemed on the brink of yet a third. His experience gave his memory meaning.

But most of all, he remembered meeting the Goddess on the mountain and her promise to be his when she was released.

Tightly in his arms, he held the reality of his dreams, promised in love on his twelfth birthday. She, too, would remember. She would know her past and her long wait for a mortal savior. She would recognize him. But the task now was to rejuvenate her with his song and deliver the deliverer.

Pol sang on, his voice cutting through the fog, relieving her suffering. Nothing ever disappears; it just moves from place to place. The demon had inflicted pain on Paul. Serepte had drained him of the pain so he could continue to fight the demon. But she had been too weakened to play the pipes, so Pol provided the music to move the pain from Serepte to the world where pain was a beauty of nature.

He sang as he walked, though at times, the silence around him was so deafening that he could not hear his own voice. The ground stabilized, though occasional tremors still threated to unbalance him.

His foot struck a ridge in front of him, almost over-balancing him as he struggled to protect Serepte. He wondered where the circle—Wayne and the four witches—had gone. He could not see them, but sensed their presence in the bubble that surrounded him, chasing the fog from immediately before him. He continued slowly, watching at his feet for more steps. Broken rocks littered his path as he continued, turning him from side to side. He could not see them from a distance, but once upon him, he could make out shape and size. Crumpled pillars in what had once been The City of the Gods. He stepped over and around them, navigating the maze toward what he knew was ahead.

A faint glow illuminated his destination. He took a circuitous route, dancing around the ruins, singing to the goddess in his arms. In the awareness of who she was and his own memories, his love was magnified and tears of joy fell from his eyes to her face. He held her tightly as he mounted the rostrum in the center of the city.

In contrast to the ruins of the city, the rostrum was smooth and clear, as if preserved against harm specifically for this day. As he stepped upon its surface, his fatigued legs stabilized and his pounding heart sent new energy to every part of his body. The power brought no new pain with it, but seemed to enhance the song he sang. His capacity to receive the energy from the rostrum expanded. The power brought fresh clarity to his mind that made him want to leap for joy. He bent his lips to Serepte’s and poured the purifying energy into her through their kiss. As she stirred in his arms and tightened her grip on him, he lifted his head once again in song. The rich language of antiquity that surpassed words by expressing complete images, surpassed images by attaching itself to a universal wholeness, and encompassed all of creation in its breath. This was how the God of the Hebrews spoke the world into existence. His song sang a welcome—to the light of the platform, to the newness of his own life, and to the dawning of a new age. And it was joined by the sweet counterpoint of Serepte in his arms.